


a Truth so Loud You Can't Ignore

by lady_liserator



Category: Pitch Perfect (Movies)
Genre: Angst, Beca is in love you guys, Drunken Kissing, Eventual Fluff, F/F, Pining, Smut and Feels
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-12-06
Updated: 2020-08-16
Packaged: 2021-02-25 22:08:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 12
Words: 38,909
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21692797
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lady_liserator/pseuds/lady_liserator
Summary: Set right after the last performance of Pitch Perfect 3. Chloe is with Chicago. Beca is angry and leaves Chloe to find out what is wrong. Passion ensues.OR: What should have happened (looking at you, Universal)
Relationships: Chloe Beale/Beca Mitchell
Comments: 97
Kudos: 347





	1. Chapter 1

It is somewhere between the third and the fourth tequila shot Amy makes her down on the dancefloor when Beca finally acknowledges the gnawing feeling in her stomach. She had tried to silence it by spending most of her night downing beers and shot after shot of tequila with Amy and even by letting herself get pulled into the middle of a dance circle the Bellas had formed in order to ‘celebrate their queen’. But however hard she tries to keep herself calm and to stop the bubbling up of emotion, she knows that she was going to lose that battle tonight. 

She looks around her sisters, who are blissfully dancing around her, still riding the high of tonight’s performance and she had been glad that the circle around her had shielded her from the sight of Chicago and Chloe dancing close to them all night. Since a few minutes, though, the two of them were nowhere to be seen, and that, it turns out, is even worse than them being around Beca. Because now images of Chloe and Chicago leaving to find their hotel or, hell, even a tree nearby to be alone, are haunting Beca. 

Deciding that her ability to pretend to happy and aloof would probably end with the next shot the Bella’s would force on her, she excuses herself from the other Bellas and the free alcohol curtesy of DJ Khaled to ostensibly find a bathroom. She turns around to leave just as Emily comes towards them through the crowd, balancing a tray of shots in front of her and Beca congratulates herself for escaping just in time.

Beca walks aimlessly through the rest of the crowd to find the area behind the stage, which she knows must be deserted by now. She dodges drunk guys who seem to have lost the ability to properly hold a beer cup and a bunch of overenthusiastic dancers, who amp up their energy every time someone who looks like they might be a music video producer walks by, and with every step Beca has to force herself not too look around the crowd too much. She definitely does not want to see a certain redhead clinging to the arm of a certain jacked army guy. Beca sneers. And she sure as hell does not want to see that same redhead kissing the army guy again, because she is sure that that sight paired with the tequila inside her system might actually make her puke. 

In a sudden jolt of anger at the involuntary surfacing of the memory of Chicago kissing Chloe after their performance, she kicks a red solo cup that’s lying on the ground, noticing too late that it isn’t empty, spilling the contents all over her right foot. 

‘Fucking great’, 

Beca mumbles to herself and, to her surprise, can feel tears starting to cloud her vision. ‘Crying over damn wet shoe now, Mitchell?’, she mocks herself and tries to wipe her tears away without being too obvious. Of course, it is not the shoe that’s turning her into this very un-Beca crying-over-spilled-beer emotional mess, but the truth is too painful to say out loud. Because the truth is stupid, and hopeless and it makes Beca feel angry and sad and foolish all at the same time. 

She should have known this was going to happen. And she had kind of expected it. She expected it to happen every time Chloe was talking about how cute some guy at Barden was or how hot one some of her exes were. She expected it from the very first moment she saw the way Chloe looked at Chicago, which had been unbearable to witness from the very first second and had only become worse each day they spent in Spain. 

She had known that at some point the day would come where she couldn’t pretend anymore that Chloe flirting with her was any more than just Chloe being Chloe. The day she couldn’t pretend anymore that the way she sometimes caught Chloe looking at her, lost-in-thought and yet entirely fixated on her, meant anything more than Chloe being her best friend. No, she had always known the day would come on which Chloe was going to actually be with one of those guys (because duh, she was Chloe and no one in their right mind said no to her) and Beca would just have to deal with it. 

It just sucked that that day had to be today, the day were Beca wanted nothing more than to celebrate her happiness with her best friend. But when Chloe had come over with Chicago by her side to hug Beca at the beginning of the party, a huge smile on her face which made her even more achingly beautiful, Beca had turned away with an overexaggerated sneer. 

‘Oh, look who finally decided to spend some time with her friends rather than with her new boy-toy’. 

The words had been out before Beca had even really thought them and the way Chloe’s smile faltered and turned into a pained expression felt like someone had shot Beca in the stomach. Beca wanted to take everything back, to do anything to take away the obvious hurt visible in Chloe’s eyes, but her mind was blank, unable to come up with anything other than the truth. And the truth was that she was angry at Chloe, angry at her for kissing that guy and for bringing him over on a night that should have belonged to the Bellas only. Angry at Chloe that it wasn’t Beca she had on her arm right now and that it wasn't Beca she was kissing. So she had just turned away from Chloe, left her standing in the crowd next to Chicago who had seemed blissfully unaware of their exchange. 

That’s when Beca had immersed herself in the safety of their dance circle and the safety of her friends while selfishly leaving Chloe behind to dance alone. The image of Chloe’s hurt expression and utter confusion when Beca had turned back around to the Bellas with a fake smile on her face now threatens to spill out of Beca in the form of even more tears and when she finally reaches the stage, Beca knows her eyes must be treacherously red. 

She quickly walks around the stage, reaching a small area that is almost unoccupied safe for a few couples kissing in various corners of the open-air seating area which had been reserved for the singers before the show. Beca sighs. She should have known that any spot that would provide a safe hide-out spot for her meant the same for stupid, horny couples looking for privacy. Beca looks around to find any spot where she can escape the kissing couples, none of which are very considerate noise-wise, and starts walking towards a brick wall on the far outer edge of the backstage area.

Anger bubbles up inside Beca again when she catches herself wishing that Chloe was here with her, the two of them just like the other couples, making out on one of the expensive-looking sofas, riding the post-performance high together. Shaking her head to get the image of Chloe looking at her with her signature Chloe-look, all sparkly-eyed and grinning unabashedly out of her head, Beca practically runs across the seating area now to hide behind the wall, which is barely taller than her but still succeeds in shielding the backstage area from the by now deserted parking lot. 

She leans against the wall and sighs, trying to block out the low voices and excited giggles that reach her from behind the wall. Soon the thumping of the music, which is not as loud here as it was closer to the bar before, finally merges with the voices surrounding her and is eventually able to drown out any background noise. Beca closes her eyes, the cool wall on her back helping to finally calm her down a little. She tries to think of her future, of her new job, about anything other than Chloe, but no thought stays in her head for longer than a second. 

No, as soon as she closes her eyes, it’s all Chloe, as always, images of her invading her senses almost unbearably so. Chloe on her bed in the hotel just days ago, looking up at Beca and biting her lip, winking at her, while Amy is making some nonsensical speech about the Spanish countryside that, as usual, seems to include far more weird Australian expressions than probably necessary. Chloe by her side at one of Emily’s concerts, arm tightly around Beca’s waist, pressed entirely too close for Beca to notice anything other than the feeling of Chloe’s body against her own as if in a trance. 

And then, the night a few months ago. The night out at a bar with the Bellas during which the realisation that she liked Chloe had hit Beca like a freight-train. Hard and fast, and so completely true that Beca knew right away that this was not something she could push back into some dark corner of her brain where she usually stored uncomfortable truths. That night, her stomach gave that by now familiar violent lurch for the first time, right when Chloe had proudly shown her the number of the hot bartender she had been eyeing all night, proudly grinning like a dork.

Beca huffs at the memory, but finally just gives in to her feelings. Gives in to those thoughts of Chloe running through her brain like a whirlwind, almost making her dizzy. Chloe’s beautiful smile which never fails to make something flutter deep within Beca’s stomach. Her red hair that always falls so perfectly around her face that Beca just wants to lose her hands in it. Chloe’s smell that ever since that night at the bar elicits a deep hunger within Beca and an urge to just grab her, just once, and feel Chloe’s body wrapped around hers. 

With an embarrassed cough Beca tries to get a grip on herself and to stop her thoughts from spiralling too far into that direction. Because that is the one thing Beca had promised herself all those months ago. No indulging in sexual fantasies involving Chloe. It is the one rule she has been trying not to break this entire time for fear that if she were to cross that line, it would become unbearable for her to even be close to Chloe. 

‘Fuck’, 

Beca mutters to herself and nervously runs her hand through her hair, which had come loose somewhere between her second beer and the first tequila shot of the night. The feeling of helplessness about her feelings for Chloe wasn’t exactly new, but today every single one of those feelings seemed heightened, impatient as if fighting to set itself free. Today, nothing she usually did to banish the thoughts before they became too powerful seemed to work. 

Hell, she had tried dancing with the Bellas, drinking, and even singing a few reconciliation songs with Evermoist, though the name still made her roll her eyes every time she heard it. Nothing had worked. She had even talked to Theo about all of her ideas for future projects and not even his sincere enthusiastic appraisal of most of what she said had sufficed to get the image of Chloe and Chiacgo kissing out of her head. 

Even worse, it failed to get rid of the image that followed this, namely herself kissing Chloe with Chloe’s arms wound tightly and desperately around her waist, begging for more. And now, with Beca finally having a moment to herself, shielded from everybody else, that particular picture is clearer than ever, searing itself into her brain, tauntingly showing Beca what could never be. 

Beca briefly thinks about going back to the hotel and to just finally allowing herself to let those fantasies about Chloe take her over. She knows that this idea is fuelled by unjustified anger and disappointment towards Chloe for liking such a bland jock-dude, but she doesn’t know if she cares anymore. She needs an outlet for these feelings, and soon, because if she lets them keep building up within her, there is no was she could ever be friends with Chloe anymore. 

And even the thought of that makes her heart ache. 

Just as she readies herself to leave the comfort of the wall she sees someone emerging behind it, entering her field of vision. Beca’s heart stops. Because she knows it’s Chloe right away, even before she can see the red curls and Chloe’s signature bright blue eyes. More than before, her body feels as if it wants to run away, but Beca can’t seem to move a single muscle of her body. So, she just stands there, hoping that her cheeks have dried and that her breath seems calmer than it feels right now. 

Chloe walks up to her briskly, in a way that is so very Chloe that it hurts, and she stops when she is finally facing Beca, her arms crossed and the expression on her face challenging, as if demanding an explanation from Beca, a good one. But Beca can’t do anything but stare at Chloe and when the seconds go by without one of them saying a word, Beca wonders how stupid she looks right now, her eyes frantically trying to find something other than Chloe to fixate on and her mouth slightly agape, as if words might escape any second now. 

‘I followed you’. 

Chloe offers and then raises on of her eyebrows when Beca still just stares at her. 

‘You kicked a cup’, she continues, ‘Your shoe is wet’. 

Beca tries to clear her throat to maybe say something that will alleviate this tension, but she only manages to produce a weird, choked sound and she closes her mouth, pressing her lips together. Chloe’s expression is unreadable to her and nothing she says is making any sense right now. Just a second ago her head was filled with images of Chloe smiling at her, kissing her, and now that Chloe was here in front of her, almost too close to bear, she suddenly feels guilty and stupid.

It isn’t Chloe’s fault that Beca can’t stop thinking about her (even if Chloe is the biggest flirt in history) and it certainly isn’t Chloe’s fault that Beca has never told her about her feelings. She couldn’t have known how hurt Beca was going to be upon seeing her kiss another person and Beca hated herself for resenting Chloe so much for doing it. It was unfair, and Beca knew it. 

‘You were being an asshole’, 

Chloe states now, taking a step closer to Beca, and Beca is still not sure what Chloe wants from her. She thinks that maybe Chloe is trying to give her opportunities to explain herself, to maybe make a light-hearted joke, but Beca’s mind goes even more blank with Chloe now inches from her, arms still crossed, her eyes raking over Beca’s face as if searching for something. 

‘I-‘, 

Beca croaks and her own voice shocks her, so full of desperation and guilt, and she exhales deeply to simply add 

‘-was’. 

Chloes steps even closer now and unfolds her arms as expression on her face changes, still searching Beca’s face, but more thoughtful now, her brow furrowed like a detective about to solve the last clue to a case. Her breath hitching and her senses entirely overwhelmed by how close Chloe is now, Beca feels her gaze flutter down to Chloe’s lips which are so impossibly close to her face now that she feels like she might pass out. 

The situation is confusing and Beca feels nervous in a way that is unfamiliar to her. This is Chloe and they have definitely been this close before, even exchanged kisses on cheeks or tight hugs without Beca ever drifting into this kind of dreamy daze. But now the air is frizzing around them, and Beca knows that this is new territory for them, still unable to comprehend even a fraction of what is happening right now. 

Chloe is angry at her, yes, but she has been before, and they have had fights, small as they were, but that had always been different. Chloe was an open book, something which Beca loved about her because it was so unlike herself, and any anger or disappointment between them had always been out in the open and solved within seconds. Chloe was always so clear about what she thought and felt that it made it easy for Beca to break down some of those walls she had spent all her life building up.

But this is different. 

Beca has no idea what Chloe is thinking about or what she wants from Beca and without Chloes’s usual puppy-like bluntness, solving the situation seems almost impossible. For a second Beca wonders if Chloe knows, if she can just see Beca’s feelings for her laid bare on her face. Then, Chloe takes another step towards her and suddenly her body is pressed against Beca’s and her lips catch Beca’s in a forceful kiss. 

Beca’s brain sort-circuits and, for a moment, all she can feel is the air changing around her, turning hot and sticky, and when she starts kissing Chloe back her body is moving of its own accord, her brain painfully bad at catching up to the situation.

And Chloe is back to being Chloe, taking charge of the kiss, boldly pushing her body into Beca, who can’t seem to find anywhere to put her hands, too overwhelmed to even think of touching Chloe right now. Beca can feel Chloe deepening the kiss, pushing her tongue past Beca’s lips and Beca is sure she would pass out if Chloe wasn’t holding her up so tightly against the wall.

When Chloe’s kisses grow more impatient, hungry even, and she suddenly brings her hands to Beca’s hips grabbing hot flesh, a whimper escapes Beca’s mouth. Beca prays that Chloe didn’t hear or didn’t notice, but Chloe suddenly stills and tears her mouth away from Beca’s. Beca almost whines at the loss of contact, but is able to screw her lips shut tightly, so that no more traitorous sounds can escape. 

Beca waits for Chloe to retreat, for her own body to be left leaning against the wall, hot and laid bare against the summer air, but it doesn’t happen. Chloe is still there, hands on Beca steadying herself against Beca’s body, making Beca’s head swim. Then, Chloe opens her eyes to find Beca’s and when she does, Beca immediately feels like fainting again. 

Seeing Chloe like this is definitely the sexiest thing she has ever experienced and she knows right then that there is no way she could ever go back to pretending that Chloe was only her friend. Chloe’s blue eyes are boring into her own, pupils dilated, and her mouth is slightly opened, lips red and bruised. Beca feels a pang of pride that this is the result of her kissing Chloe, of finally being close to her in the way she had dreamed of so many times. But the feeling quickly turns back into the gnawing feeling of unease when she remembers the situation that brought them here in the first place.

How would they ever recover from this? And why was Chloe even kissing her now after Beca had been so horrible to her just hours before? She is suddenly scared that this was just Chloe’s way of getting the confirmation that yes, Beca had been jealous of Chicago and that yes, Beca liked her. Maybe Chloe had just wanted to see what would happen and now Beca had ruined their friendship forever just because she was unable to restrain herself.

For a moment, both just stare at each other, Beca at a complete loss of what to do next, her arms hanging limply by her side, and Chloe staring back at her with an unreadable expression. Their bodies are still pressed together and when Chloe’s gaze flutters down to Beca’s lips, Beca is suddenly sure that she can see a flash of what is undeniably a mix between hunger and arousal.

In a split-second a decision forms in Beca’s head and with the last ounce of her strength she closes the distance between them again, passionately capturing Chloes’s lips with her own. When Chloe responds eagerly as if she had only been waiting for Beca to kiss her again, Beca feels heat pool low in her stomach, turning her entire body into a tingling mess that becomes harder to control by the second. 

When Beca finally reaches her hands up to tangle them in Chloe’s hair, she is absolutely lost in Chloe, any rational thoughts or worries of rejection vanished from her mind.

She feels herself become impatient, a low throbbing is building up between her legs accompanied by an ache that she can’t remember having ever felt before. When her hand comes down from Chloe’s hair and lands on Chloe’s hip, pulling her impossibly closer, Chloe suddenly mutters something against her lips. ‘ 

Shit, Beca’. 

The words are mumbled in a low voice, dry and husky, before Chloe’s lips are on hers again, teeth scraping over her lower lip, and Beca can feel her eyes roll back in her head. She feels like she’s on fire, like she can’t stand another second of this ache in her body without doing something about it.

Completely lost in Chloe’s kisses, Beca registers barely that Chloe captures her lower lip between her teeth and when she feels the sensation of a soft bite course through her, Beca’s body seems to go into autopilot. Her hands fall down to Chloe’s lower back pulling hard while grinding down on Chloe’s thigh which had been temptingly placed between her legs for several minutes now. The sensation is so instantaneous and powerful, that she registers the moan which escapes from the back of her throat too late to stop it. When it is out, overwhelmingly definite, an open confirmation of her desire towards Chloe, Chloe’s body is suddenly gone, leaving Beca slumped against the wall, desire still coursing through her veins.

Beca doesn’t dare to look at Chloe and the acknowledgement of her arousal still hangs heavy in the air, making her feel more vulnerable than she has ever felt before. She knows her breathing is still frantic and her shoulders are rising and falling with every sharp intake of breath. 

‘Shit, Beca’, 

she suddenly hears Chloe mumble again and a flash of heat shoots through Beca’s body with the memory of when these words were muttered against her lips mere seconds ago. Yeah, shit. There’s no coming back from this now.

‘Uhm’, Beca opens her mouth but her brain seems unable to find actual words aside from monosyllabic utterances and she just lets out another ‘Uh’ before closing her mouth again, while desperately trying to come up with something to say. Her skin is still burning where Chloe’s hands had been, and her brain is swimming with Chloe’s scent, and it’s threatening to overpower any rational thought she might still have left. 

She tries to get herself to look up, dares herself to face Chloe and whatever her reaction to this might be, but her heart is still hammering in chest and her throat feels dry and tight. Beca is desperately trying to calm down, trying anything in her willpower to banish the memory of the sound that had just come out of her in order to not let herself be swept up by the wave of embarrassment and guilt which she can already feel building up inside of her. 

The thought of just running away crosses her mind and she considers whether it would actually make things worse or possibly just more bearable for both of them. The image of her desperately grabbing Chloe’s waist and the accompanying moan that had escaped her flashes before her eyes again and it makes her cringe so hard she is sure Chloes notices it. She can’t believe she let herself go like this and that this is the way Chloe had to find out about Beca’s feelings.

Chloe still hasn’t said anything and finally Beca’s curiosity takes the better of her, and she looks up to find Chloe’s gaze immediately, fixed upon her. 

The second Beca sees Chloes like this, staring at her, lips red and swollen from their kisses, hair messy from where Beca had slid her hands into it, her breath hitches and it all becomes too much again. Chloe’s expression is unreadable, and it scares Beca, because Chloe usually wears her emotions proudly and without shame for everyone to see. Beca is sure she looks just as wrecked as Chloe and she has to avert her eyes again, shame gnawing at her insides.

She hears a sharp intake of breath coming from Chloe then and she clenches her teeth getting ready for whatever Chloe is going to say to her. But seconds go by and Chloe stays silent and when Beca looks back up again, to see what is going on, she sees Chloe biting her lip, thinking. Suddenly, she can feel her own mouth open and words come out with a croaky voice Beca has never heard herself use. 

‘You kissed me’. 

Ugh. Beca shakes her head and and presses her lips together violently to stop her from saying anything more. It sounds like a weak excuse, an unfair assignment of blame and she hates herself for it.

To her surprise, however, Chloe doesn’t seem to get angry at his, but she scrunches up her nose, adorably, as if thinking, and finally replies. 

‘And you liked it’. 

Her face is still unreadable, her eyes are still boring into Beca's, and what usually would have been a typical light-hearted, flirty Chloe-reply becomes a heavy, almost tangible thing hanging in the air between them.

The truth is out now, Beca knows it is, and neither of them seem to know what to do with it. So, they just stand there, Beca’s breath still coming out in short, hitched puffs and Chloe still staring at Beca, her gaze wandering over Beca’s face. Then slowly, Chloe raises her fingers up to her mouth as if to check something and her gaze falls back onto Beca, locking eyes with her. 

‘You really liked it’.


	2. Chapter 2

Beca has no idea what to say in response. 

She normally loves Chloe’s ability to make light of almost any situation, but right now it seems out of place and insulting. And while her tone is chipper, Chloe’s voice sounds deeper and more breathy than usual, giving more weight to the utterance than Chloe has probably expected.  
Yes, Beca liked the kiss. A lot.

And now they both know.

It is still impossible for Beca to decipher the meaning behind the way Chloe is looking at her and it is starting to make her angry. Other than the traitorous breathiness of her voice, Chloe seems to have regained her composure pretty quickly while Beca still can’t stand without the support of the wall and seems unable to control her breath.

She feels stripped and exposed like all of her feelings, everything she had been bottling up for the past months, are laid bare in front of her while Chloe pretends not to see. More so, Chloe seems distant suddenly, almost as if she is unaware of the fact that she and Beca had been kissing mere seconds ago and that she left Beca slumped against the wall, still trembling, her every fiber yearning for Chloe. 

There is a weird fake smile plastered on Chloe’s face, as if she desperately wants to convey to Beca that her previous statement was supposed to be a joke. 

That it was supposed to take them back to simpler times, in which Chloe would tease Beca and would be flirty with her while Beca would brush it off and reprimand her for it. But Beca can’t bring herself to take part in the act, and she wonders if Chloe really can’t feel the weight of the situation, the gravity of what they have just done.

And through all her confusing feelings, through her anger, Beca still cannot take her eyes of Chloe. 

She looks beautiful in the dim lights of the backstage area behind them, and because Beca is angry and hurt, she allows to really look at Chloe. She takes her in, every inch of her, almost possessively, letting her eyes travel over Chloe’s face, stopping at her lips which are still redder than usual, and her eyes, which try to avoid Beca’s gaze.  
For a moment, Beca thinks there’s a flicker of desire in Chloe’s eyes they meet Beca’s reluctantly, but it passes quickly and Beca waits for it to come back in vain.

Then, suddenly, there is a commotion behind the wall, and through a cloud of giggles, Beca can hear Amy call out their names. 

‘Chloe! Beca! Please tell us you’re here somewhere, because if I had to see all of this-‘,

there is an exaggerated pause, in which Amy is probably making sure each and every one of the couples feel thoroughly embarrassed ‘-for nothing I’m definitely making you pay’.

The familiar voice wakes something within Beca and the spell that kept Beca unable to do anything other than stare at Chloe is broken. More grateful than ever for Amy’s utter disregard for other people’s privacy, Beca is finally able to tear her eyes away from Chloe, who is still wearing that plastic smile that fails to reach her eyes.  
Slowly, Beca’s body remembers how to listen to her brain and after she stumbles a little due to her shaky legs, Beca practically runs towards the backstage area, leaving Chloe behind staring at the wall.

The hot summer air still clings stickily to Beca when she emerges behind the, and she quickly tucks a few lose strands of her hair behind her ears to try and look semi-presentable.  
When she lets out a croaky ‘Aww, you guys missed me’ in a voice that is not quite yet hers again, the Bellas turn to face her almost in unison and Beca can’t help but smile. They all look absolutely chaotic, outfits and hair in various stages of disarray, and there’s an air of carefree happiness around them, the kind that is usually due to copious amounts of alcohol. 

And when the Bellas start stumbling towards her, all smiles and laughter, Beca feels like she can breathe again. She lets herself get wrapped up in a big over-the-top hug by Amy, after a dramatic ‘We thought we lost you’, and they’re soon joined by the other Bellas. When Emily suddenly breaks the hug and very seriously adds ‘You are too small to walk around alone, you know that’, a laugh escapes Beca, and with it, all of her confusing feelings from just a few seconds before.

That is, until Amy lets go of her and points at something behind Beca while yelling Chloe’s name just a little too close to Beca’s ear. 

The Bellas all follow Amy now, likely greeting Chloe in a similarly dramatic fashion, and Beca freezes. For a long moment, she stays still, her back to Chloe and the Bellas, and tears well up in her eyes. It almost feels as though an invisible wall separates her from her friends now, and suddenly Beca feels incredibly helpless.

She thinks back to their performance just a few hours ago, and the way they had all hugged each other on stage, similarly to now, only less drunk, and the image of her and Chloe at the center of the hug, arms wrapped around each other, invades her mind. She wonders if she will ever be able to that carefree around Chloe ever again and her throat tightens painfully.

She realises that she doesn’t even recall how it all happened, how this all went to shit in the course of one night. It seems like an eternity has passed between their performance, her and Chloe singing side by side, and now, the two of them further apart than ever with Beca unable to even look at Chloe.  
The image of her and Chloe pressed against the wall flashes before her eyes and her stomach twists as she involuntarily screws her eyes shut to get rid of it. 

It has already been too long, her standing with her back to the other Bellas, and she has to do something soon so no one would suspect anything. The women behind her are all talking over each other now, and Beca is sure that the hug has ended. She tries to get rid of the memory of the kiss, and when she almost succeeds, she turns around with a forced smile she is sure rivals the one Chloe had worn minutes ago. 

Temporary relief curses through Beca’s body when she finally faces her friends. Chloe is standing with her back to Beca, demonstratively Beca thinks, and Beca takes a few deep breaths to calm down her rapidly beating heart. She sees Emily waving her hand in way that suggests she is incredibly drunk, but also that she wants Beca to join them, and finally starts moving.  
As Beca slowly nears the group of women her legs become heavier with each step. There’s a tight feeling in her stomach again, or maybe it had never left, and her throat grows tighter and tighter the closer she gets to the group. 

Chloe is caught up in a lively conversation with Aubrey and Cynthia now, all three of them laughing loudly at something Chloe must have said.  
Beca can feel anger boil up inside of her. She feels like a complete idiot, because while she can hardly keep control over her body, Chloe is back to her old self seemingly effortlessly. As if she has already forgotten about Beca, forgotten about the way she had her body pressed into Beca’s just minutes ago. 

But Beca can’t forget, not even now, and when she looks at Chloe’s back, her hair still tousled in places where Beca had buried her hands, she can’t think of anything else, the image seared into her brain. Chloe inches away from her, her eyes hungry, whispering against her lips. Her own hands grabbing Chloe, losing themselves in her until - Shit, Beca.  


The memory of the words shoots through Beca like lightning and she can feel them rumbling inside her stomach setting her entire body on fire.

No, as much as Chloe wants to pretend now, she has felt something too, Beca is suddenly sure of it. The alternative would mean that Chloe had used her, had kissed her out of curiosity maybe, or to confirm a suspicion that Beca was into her, and Beca knew that Chloe would never endanger their friendship like that. Something inside her twists at the word, and Beca shakes her head, her entire body shuddering along.  
Friendship.  
She huffs and when Emily looks at her through unfocused eyes, almost as if trying to figure out why Beca is still so far away, Beca takes the last few steps towards the group, mouth twisted into something that she hopes at least resembles a grin.

Luckily, when Beca finally joins Amy and Emily they’re engaged in a mostly slurred debate about who was guilty of the snores that several of them had been woken up by during the last few nights. Relieved that her input seems unneeded, Beca just stands close to them, her mind constantly wandering off to Chloe. She can still only see the back of Chloe’s head with Aubrey and Cynthia facing her, but they’re much closer now. So, as Beca tunes in and out of Amy and Emily’s nonsensical dispute, she can start to hear snippets of the other girls’ conversation. 

She has a hard time piecing the bits together at first, but then Beca sees Aubrey make a sweeping gesture outlining a body while Cynthia scrunches her nose in disgust, and Beca realises with horror that the three of them are talking about Chicago.  
When she eventually hears Chloe, through a fit of giggles coming from Aubrey, say the word ‘hunk’ she honestly considers ripping off her ears then and there.

For some reason, during this entire thing, Beca has completely forgotten about Chicago. Has forgotten that Chicago was going to be here later tonight, and probably tomorrow morning, and who knows for how long. Has forgotten that Chloe seemed to have had eyes only for him since they the day they met him. And now, after having been so close to Chloe, so close to what she has wanted for years now, the idea of Chloe with someone else by her side is unbearable to Beca.

And then another realisation enters Beca’s mind, making her groan. The memory is suddenly clear as day and Beca can’t believe she hadn’t thought of it until now. Her and the other Bellas, Chloe included, frantically booking an AirBnB by the sea just before the big performance.

It had seemed like the perfect idea. 

A big house, a private room for each of them (Amy had been particularly vocal about needing her privacy to have fun), a pool, and all of them together for another week. Beca has looked forward to spending another week with all of her friends, especially with Chloe who was finally back to her old carefree self in Spain. Now, she wishes she could skip the whole thing, the memory of her four-hour ago self all happy and excited suddenly painful. 

Through her thoughts, Beca realises too late that she is still staring into the direction of Aubrey, Cynthia and Chloe, and when Aubrey starts waving at her beckoning her to come over, Beca heart drops into her stomach.  


‘Hey superstar! Come over here!’  


Cynthia’s words reach Beca as through a cotton wall and she feels like she is going to faint. The bass of the music, which had been part of the background noise before, suddenly feels incredibly loud, an incessant pounding in Beca’s ears and her legs are back to their old shaky selves in seconds.

They’re both looking at her now, Cynthia and Aubrey, while Chloe’s back is still turned towards Beca. There is a change in Chloe’s posture, however, as if she is clenching every single muscle in her body, and as Beca slowly makes her way towards the girls, she can see that Chloe is shaking slightly. 

‘Dude, where did you go?’  


Cynthia immediately wraps her arm around Beca’s shoulders when Beca reaches the group, effectively turning Beca around to face Chloe. Trying to look anywhere but at Chloe, Beca talks to her own shoes as she responds.  


‘I didn’t think you were going to miss me with all those shots around’.

Relief curses through Beca when she realises that her voice is back to normal.  


‘And I know you were eyeing that singer from Evermoist’.  


Feeling bolder, Beca nudges Cynthia and looks up at her with a wink. When Cynthia responds with a hearty laugh and a faux-scandalized ‘Never!’, Beca almost feels like maybe everything is going to be okay.

But then Aubrey looks back and forth between Beca and Chloe, her eyebrows raised. Even though Beca braces herself it feels like the ground is taken away from under her when Aubrey finally asks.  


‘What did the two of you do back here?’

Chloe looks at Beca, abruptly and with burning eyes, and Beca can’t tell if it’s out of anger or the same kind of fear that she herself feels right now. The stare feels entirely too intimate after what has happened minutes before and when Beca hears herself audibly swallow she hopes the others don’t notice.  
Beca’s mind is blank, and her and Chloe are still just staring at each other, while Beca’s heart is beating out of her chest. And just when Beca is about to say something about spilled beer and wet shoes, Cynthia shifts next to her before her arm around Beca’s shoulders tightens subtly.

‘Girl, I almost ran away with them when you initiated that fourth dance circle’.  


Shocked to hear someone else speak, Beca looks up at Cynthia to see her raise her eyebrows at Aubrey teasingly.  


‘Don’t blame them for escaping that torture’.  


Beca holds her breath. She almost believes it herself, that’s how convincing Cynthia sounds, and when Aubrey flips her hair back, ostensibly offended at the critique, and grabs Cynthia to ‘make her learn to love the dance circles’ Beca knows they’re safe. For now.

Aubrey drags Cynthia away, grabbing Lilly and Flo on her way, already swinging her hips in a way that would make the Aubrey Beca met in her first year at Barden blush. Amy, Emily and the others soon follow, hollering at Aubrey, but Beca can’t find the strength to join in and leave Chloe behind. Upon the realisation that they are now alone again, without the comfort and distraction of their friends, Beca can feel the tension between her and Chloe rise tenfold and it sucks her in like a vacuum forcing her to stay.

They’re still facing each other, and even though Chloe’s face is now blocking most of their friends, Beca keeps her eyes almost comically trained on anyone she still can see behind Chloe. She sees Chloe move out of the corner of her eye and suddenly becomes acutely aware of the fact that Chloe has taken a step closer towards her.  
Behind her, Aubrey has just started her fifth dance circle of the night, which ends up looking less like a dance circle and more like an uncoordinated group of baby goats stumbling all over each other.

There are a million conflicting emotions running through Beca’s head, threatening to overwhelm her, and yet, all she can think about is that she is close enough to Chloe to touch her again. Her fingers itch with a familiar longing, stronger than ever now that they were alive with memories of what it felt like to actually touch Chloe.

Beca is still debating what to do next when Chloe’s hand grabs her arm, suddenly and forcefully, and Beca stops in her tracks.

‘Did you tell her about us?’  


Chloe’s voice is quiet but angry and sounds so strangely unlike Chloe that it takes Beca a second to realise what Chloe is saying.

‘What?’  


It’s all Beca’s brain manages. Her arm burns where Chloe is holding it and her thoughts are racing through her mind a million miles per hour. Involuntarily she lifts her head to look at Chloe and when their eyes meet, Chloe lets go of her arm, almost as if she was burned.

‘Did you tell Cynthia about us?’  


There is fear in Chloe’s voice now and it breaks Beca’s heart. The situation feels too intimate with just the two of them standing alone, away from the other Bellas, and there’s an overwhelming urge to comfort Chloe within her, one she knows she can’t follow.  


As Beca just stares at Chloe, mouth open in a futile attempt to answer, she can feel herself get lost in her again, the memory of Chloe’s lips on her own still fresh on her mind and too powerful to vanquish. Only when Chloe raises her eyebrow angrily, her face hardening again, does Beca try to answer, hoping her voice won’t sound as weak as she feels.

‘No, I- I didn’t. I don’t know why she did that. Maybe she just knew that Aubrey would be mad at us for bailing and wanted...’  


When Chloe lets out a sarcastic snort at her attempted, and admittedly not very believable, explanation, Beca’s voice trails off.  
There’s no way to deny that Cynthia picked up on something between them, and Beca knows why that idea scares Chloe, because it scares her, too.  
Cynthia knowing makes this entire night incredibly real.

Just when Beca opens her mouth again to maybe say something else, maybe something comforting, she sees him.  


Chicago.  


Behind Chloe, Aubrey almost jumps on him when he appears, two drinks in his hand, and he lets himself get dragged in the middle of the dance circle for a second. Beca sneers. She hates how nice he is. While dancing, his eyes are searching, roaming around between the various small groups of people until they land on Chloe, whose back is turned towards him.

Beca can feel her own face fall as his lights up upon finding Chloe, who turns around after seeing Beca’s expression change.  
Beca is glad that Chloe can’t see her face now, the painful surge through her heart likely reflected perfectly within her eyes. Chloe waves at Chicago when she sees him, a weird robotic motion, and takes a first step in his direction before she turns around once more, tentatively, almost as if against her will. 

When Chloe’s eyes meet Beca’s they’re tired and for a short moment Beca feels connected to Chloe again. Like they’re thinking the exact same thing.  
But then Chloe’s expression changes, in the blink of an eye, and Chloe grins at her, her blue eyes bright and shiny, as if everything was back to normal between them. With a playful wink, one that Beca usually loves, she turns around to leave Beca standing by herself feeling like she has been kicked in the stomach.

And all the while Beca looks after Chloe, mourning the fact that she feels so much like a stranger to her now, she can’t forget the way Chloe had worded her question.  
Did you tell her about us?  
Beca holds on to the word, wanting to keep it with her, as she slowly makes her way towards the others, following Chloe and Chicago.  


Us.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, it took a country-wide quarantine to get me back into this, but this time I'm sticking around.  
> Thank you all for your kind feedback and stay safe.


	3. Chapter 3

When Beca wakes up the next morning, she feels sick.  
Her stomach is twisted in a tight knot and Beca isn’t sure if it’s the aftermath of the drinking or the dreams about Chloe that have haunted her all night.  
Today is check-out day, and Aubrey had warned them all to be ready to leave the hotel at 10 am sharp. Beca woke up even without her alarm.

When she checks her phone, it’s only 7:30, and Beca lets her head fall back into her pillow with a thud. She has no idea how she is supposed to face Chloe later, let alone spent an entire week with her in a remote AirBnb, or go back to their apartment after all of this.

She groans and debates whether she could possibly come up with a good enough excuse to go back without the other girls. Maybe she could ask Theo to make her start her new job early? Fake some sort of illness?   
But she can’t get out of this, she knows, and upon seeing the disappointed faces of her friends appear before her inner eye, she decides that she doesn’t want to get out of it anyways. 

She just has to suck it up.

She’s Beca Mitchell, she doesn’t do feelings, and if Chloe is going to continue to pretend like nothing happened, she can very well do the same.

Hopefully.

Because that’s what Chloe had done for the rest of last night. She had danced with Chicago, thankfully less explicitly than Beca had feared, had made jokes with the other girls, and had even included Beca in her conversations. As if everything was normal.  
Beca is sure that no one other than Cynthia could have suspected anything because at some point Beca honestly questioned whether she hadn’t simply imagined the whole thing between them herself.

But, of course, Beca hasn’t imagined it, and as soon as she lay in her own bed last night, the pictures flooded over her, invaded her mind, and it was the first time that Beca didn’t try to stop them.

No sexual fantasies about Chloe, it had always been her rule, but last night, be it out of spite or out of sheer necessity, she finally broke that rule.   
Drowned herself in the fantasy of what could have happened if Chloe hadn’t backed away after Beca’s moan. Let the images of herself getting lost in Chloe’s touches wash over her, her own hand buried in her pyjama pants, until she finally felt relief.

After that, sleep came fast, and with it, dreams of Chloe.

Beca finally crawls out of bed at 8:15, the need for water overpowering her urge to stay buried beneath the blankets, and she showers and gets ready in record time. She tries to keep busy to avoid thinking about what’s to come the following week and has soon packed her suitcases more thoroughly than ever, before she finally sits down to take a breath. 

It’s almost 10 am now and she knows she is probably already the last one to go downstairs. When Aubrey has planned something, everyone is usually smart enough not to keep her waiting, but Beca feels paralyzed at the prospect of seeing Chloe again.

Last night, Beca had left the party with Emily and Flo, a little earlier than everyone else, and she has no idea when or how the others got back. She had also expertly avoided having to say goodbye to Chloe when everyone was hugging each other goodbye by volunteering to help an extremely drunk Emily stand up.

Beca sighs at the memory of herself standing far away from Chloe, watching her immediately turn back to Chicago after saying her drunk goodbyes to Flo.  
Beca gets up and starts pacing around the room to distract herself. Her nerves are already getting the better of her just thinking about having to be in the same house with Chloe for the next few days, and she is sure that having let herself indulge in her feelings for Chloe last night made the whole thing a million times worse.

But she has to go downstairs, and soon, before Aubrey sends someone up to go get her. So, Beca tries to hype herself up with a few deep breaths before she finally stops her nervous pacing and grabs her suitcases to make her way to the lobby, her heart beating out of her chest.

\-------

When Beca gets out of the elevator, the first thing she notices is that Chloe is not there.   
A weird mixture of relief and disappointment surges through her, and she tries not to look around too obviously to find the redhead in the lobby.

‘You promised to get up on time’.

Aubrey walks up to Beca briskly and greets her with her finger lifted into the air and a stern look that can’t quite mask the hangover that is written all over face.

‘And you promised to stop being such a soccer mom’.

The reply is a little too mean, but Aubrey who is already frantically hurrying the other Bellas towards the exit, doesn’t seem to notice Beca’s obvious bad mood.

Everyone is quiet this morning, and Beca would definitely feel amused by the way everyone is dragging themselves around the lobby if she didn’t feel like shit herself.   
Even Amy, who is wearing a big pair of black sunglasses that covers half her face, and who very obviously hasn’t deemed it necessary to change out of her pyjamas, isn’t saying a word. Next to her, Emily is leaning so much on her suitcase that Beca fears the handle might break, and Flo and Lilly are holding each other up as they’re leading the group outside with Aubrey giving instructions from behind.

‘Parking lot, around the hotel, there’s two Ubers waiting’.

Aubrey is walking next to Beca, and when she yells her directions a little too loudly, Beca groans audibly.

‘Come on, you probably slept the longest out of all of us, Miss Irish Goodbye’.

Aubrey nudges Beca, but she has abandoned the soccer-mom tone and smiles at Beca when she says it.

‘Dude, it was already past midnight and I’m old now. Plus, I actually wanted to be able to take a shower this morning’.

Beca gestures towards the girls walking in front of them, who had all clearly stuck to minimal morning routines, and raises her eyebrows at Aubrey.

‘Huh’,

Aubrey cocks her head slightly as if she hasn’t noticed the fact that every single one of their friends looks like they have rolled out of bed mere minutes ago.

‘I guess we are the only clean ones. You were still the last one to show, though’.

Beca lets out a huff in response and grows silent, unsure whether she should point out that Chloe seems to be even later than her.  
She finally decides to take her chances.

‘Not me, what about Chloe?’

Her voice sounds weak, and Beca wonders whether Aubrey can hear the tremble in her voice when she says Chloe’s name.

‘Oh, she’s not here’.

Aubrey wiggles her eyebrows as she responds, and Beca knows right away that she isn’t going to like what Aubrey will say next.

‘Yeah, she slept over at Chicago’s and will join us later’,

Aubrey takes a dramatic break.

‘When they’re done saying goodbye to each other I guess’.

Beca feels like her heart is ripped out of her chest. 

So, while Beca had been alone in her bed, thinking about Chloe all night, Chloe had slept over at Chicago’s. Fucking great. Beca wants to stop all the images of Chloe and him together from taking over her mind, but she can’t.

She suddenly feels like a huge loser for having gotten herself off to fantasies about Chloe while Chloe had evidently not thought about Beca at all. While Chloe had apparently even been busy otherwise.   
Beca shudders at the thought.

Trying really hard not to show how much she is affected by this news, Beca replies in a low voice, a forced smile on her lips.

‘Why goodbye? Have you enacted some sort of boy prohibition for our “girls’ week”?’

Beca imitates Aubrey’s chipper tone when she says the last words, again a little too mean, but Aubrey only snorts in response.

‘Yeah, like I could get that past Amy. No, didn’t Chloe tell you?’

A sharp pain surges through Beca’s chest at the question. No, Chloe hadn’t told her.

‘Chicago is leaving for a few days, on urgent overseas business or whatever. He’s leaving in a few hours, I think, and Chloe will join us after’.

‘Oh’.

It’s all Beca can say, because she is pretty sure she is going to puke if she opens her mouth any more than that. She doesn’t even want to think about the two of them exchanging heartfelt goodbyes at the airport. And she definitely doesn’t want to think about anything that could be happening before that.

Beca clenches her teeth involuntarily, unable now to conceal her anger. 

Luckily, that’s when Flo and Lilly turn a wrong corner, or rather stumble into the wrong direction, and Aubrey runs up towards the front of the group to guide them.

\-------

The next few hours of the day go by as if Beca isn’t really there. She unenthusiastically tries to match everyone’s excitement about the house with a few ‘ooh’s and ‘aah’s upon arrival and then absentmindedly unpacks her suitcases in her new home for the week. 

She picks a small and airy room on the first floor with a large oak tree in front of her window, and she actually feels better when she sits down on her bed and finally allows herself to ditch the forced smile. With a sigh she lays down on her bed and observes the leaves swaying in the light summer breeze.

She wishes she could stay in hidden in this room forever.

Luckily, the other girls seem to need a little peace and quiet as well. So, soon after their arrival, everyone is silently withdrawn in their rooms, and Beca can use the time to muse about possible ways she can avoid Chloe in the small house.

Unable to think of anything helpful, she falls asleep soon, however, and only wakes up when the soft chatter of her friends reaches her through the closed door.

When Beca comes down the stairs everyone is already sitting at the large dining table in the open-plan living area, and Beca can’t help but grin when she sees two open wine bottles on the table.   
Everyone looks a lot livelier than this morning, and they’re already talking over each other, laughter filling the air. Chloe is still nowhere to be seen and Beca decides to let herself enjoy this time with her friends before the inevitable confrontation with Chloe later that night.

‘So we still haven’t reached the age where hangovers last more than half a day, have we?’

Beca approaches the table and points at the bottles of wine. Amy looks up at her, a big grin on her face as if she is extremely proud of herself.

‘No, man, we’re still fresh as clams and ready to party’.

She wiggles her shoulders to underline just how ready to party she is and uses her foot to push the chair next to her towards Beca.

Beca sits down and looks around her friends, happy now that she hasn’t ran away this morning, and accepts the glass of wine Emily hands her eagerly.  
They all toast in the middle of the table, to the Bellas of course, and as she gets lost in conversations about old times and new plans, Beca actually forgets about Chloe for a few blissful minutes.

Four bottles of Spanish Cab Savs and two hours later, they’ve already converted the living room table into a DJ set, and Aubrey has pushed the dining table aside to create a tiny dance floor in the middle of the room.

Leaning against the table, Beca is absorbed in a conversation with Flo about how much more beautiful her Guatemalan Spanish sounds compared to Spain’s ‘inferior language’, when it finally happens. 

Chloe is back.

Beca has almost forgotten how beautiful she is, and she can hardly look at her when Chloe enters the room with a huge grin on her face, looking around in admiration for their accommodation.

‘This place is awesome’.

Chloe is smiling from ear to ear as she hugs Aubrey and it resonates within Beca as a painful rumbling in her stomach.  
She has always loved Chloe’s ability to get so quickly and purely excited about something and she hates that she cannot be a part of Chloe’s happiness now.

Chloe leaves her suitcases standing by the door as she goes around the room greeting her tipsy (and therefore overly affectionate) friends one by one.   
Beca knows she can’t escape the hug this time or the others would notice.

She holds her breath when Chloe finally lets go of Lilly. Her and Flo are the last ones left, and Flo is already taking a step towards Chloe, who is slowly turning around to face her and Beca.

For a moment it seems like Chloe wants to turn around again, away from Beca, but then Chloe’s demeanour is back to normal in the blink of an eye and she briskly walks towards Flo to wrap her arms around her.

When their hug ends, Flo looks at Chloe very seriously.

‘You know that Guatemalan Spanish is the only real Spanish, right?’

Chloe smiles like a benevolent teacher when she answers without missing a beat.

‘Yup, that’s what I always say’.

‘Ha!’

Flo turns around to Beca, as if Beca has offended her.

‘See, Chloe at least agrees’.

Beca shakes her head, now very aware that Chloe is looking at her along with Flo. She can feel her voice already trembling when she tries to remind Flo that she has been agreeing with her throughout their entire conversation.

‘Dude, I never said anything against-‘

But Flo isn’t even listening anymore, making her way towards the Laptop on the table, and Beca’s shoulders fall in defeat when her voice trails off. She realises that there’s no escaping it now.

She has to face Chloe.

Suddenly the chatter of the other girls hardly reaches her. Chloe is approaching her slowly, and Beca can’t seem to move.   
It’s all happening in slow motion, Chloe getting closer, still smiling as if nothing is wrong between them, her eyes flickering over Beca’s face.   
Beca shifts uncomfortably under Chloe’s stare. She tries to be brave and looks up to meet Chloe’s gaze, her bright blue is burning into hers, and she feels herself drowning in them until Chloe eventually comes to a halt right in front of her.

They are facing each other now, the air around them crackling, and Beca wonders if Chloe can feel the shift in temperature, too.   
She is desperately searching Chloe’s face for an indication that her cheerful demeanour is an act, that Chloe’s grin is masking something else, but she can’t find anything.

Instead, she lets herself get wrapped in a quick hug by Chloe, trembling while Chloe seems utterly stable and she hates her body for betraying her like this.

She wants to play it cool, wants to be as okay with this as Chloe seems to be, but she can’t. 

The hug is over before it even started, before Beca can even really feel it, and Chloe retreats, leaving Beca standing alone, intoxicated by the cloud of Chloe that lingers around her like a ghost.

\-------

For the rest of the night, Beca tries to stay away from Chloe as far as she can. She can hear Chicago’s name probably a hundred times in the following hours when each of the girls asks Chloe to retell the romantic tale of their last night together, and a part of her breaks each time she has to hear it.

Then, around three hours after Chloe has come back (there’s now a truly embarrassing number of empty bottles on the table), Beca finds herself close to Chloe again.

Not knowing that Chloe is occupying the kitchen along with Amy, Beca follows Aubrey to the fridge to get some water for a very drunk Lilly.

When Beca enters the kitchen area and sees Chloe standing next to the sink, across the room, it is too late to turn around. Her throat feels immediately tight again.  
Aubrey is still talking to her about the importance of water intake to avoid wrinkles along with a hangover, and Beca silently follows her like on autopilot, trying her best to concentrate on Aubrey and ignore whatever Chloe and Amy are talking about.

Still, Beca’s closer to Chloe than she has been all night, and Amy isn’t paying much attention to her volume, so that’s when Beca finally gets it, the confirmation of what she hasn’t even dared to ask her herself. 

‘Ooh yeah, I knew he was going to be a beast in bed. Good on you’.

Amy practically yells it across the kitchen, and when a bright-red Chloe whips her head around while shushing Amy angrily, her eyes immediately land on Beca’s.

Chloe’s face falls when she sees her, and her eyes are suddenly inexplicably dark. Her stare goes through Beca like lightning, and it ignites the anger that is bubbling up within Beca even further.

She can’t believe it. 

Chloe really fucking went home and slept with someone else after their kiss.

Beca knows her anger and her disappointment are showing on her face, but she can’t bring herself to care. She is openly staring at Chloe now, unable to pretend she is still listening to Aubrey. 

Chloe almost looks a little scared.

Amy has immediately gone into a tangent of that one time where she slept with a ‘really hot Army guy’ herself, and her chatter fills the room. 

But Beca can’t hear any of it.   
She can’t even move, because Chloe is still staring at her and this time she isn’t pretending.

Chloe’s face is stripped of the cheerful exterior she has been putting on all night, and Beca experiences a weird sense of gratification in seeing Chloe finally drop her act.  
Chloe’s shoulders are slumped, and she’s gnawing nervously on her lower lip, something that Beca knows means Chloe is feeling truly insecure. There’s desperation in her eyes now, and Beca almost feels like Chloe wants to tell her something before Amy abruptly breaks the spell and waves her hand in front of Chloe’s face.

But Beca doesn’t get to hear what Amy says to Chloe then and she doesn’t get to see whether Chloe can go back to pretending everything is fine again, either.  
She just wants to leave now, wants to be alone, wants to let herself feel her anger towards Chloe.

She feels utterly betrayed and at the same time, which is even worse, she knows that Chloe can do whatever she wants. 

She storms by the other girls and is halfway up the stairs when she hears Aubrey say her name.

‘Beca? Are you okay?’

Beca turns around to see Aubrey stare at her, confusion and concern on her face, as the other girls start to realise something is wrong and turn around one by one to face Beca as well.

‘Uhm’,

Beca can barely get words to form in her brain, and her throat feels too tight to speak.

‘I- uh, feel a little sick. Told you guys I’ve gotten old’,

She adds a wink and hopes it’s enough to stop the others from worrying. She knows the smile that she’s fighting to keep on her lips is slipping, and she wants nothing more than to finally get to her room.

‘Do you need anything?`

Aubrey still seems worried by Beca’s sudden need to departure, but Emily nudges her in the side.

‘Who wanted to stop being such a mom?`

Aubrey laughs and rolls her eyes.

‘Friends can worry, too, guys.’

She looks around the room with a smile and then back up to Beca.

‘So, you’re okay?’

They’re all smiling at her now, and Beca can feel the anger within her die down. What’s left is a profound sense of sadness and Beca knows she won’t be able to stop the tears for much longer.

So, she forces one last smile.

‘Totally okay. Just old and lame. But you guys have fun. And don’t try to be quiet because of me, okay’.

Beca wonders for a second if the added finger-guns at the end are a tad too much to seem convincing, but everyone seems at ease now. Flo blows her an exaggerated kiss, almost spilling her wine, and turns back around to pick the next song, while Aubrey and the others wave her goodbye. 

Chloe is standing on the far end of the room, still leaning against the kitchen counter, and she doesn’t look up. 

\--------

After drying her tears following a truly embarrassing breakdown in the bathroom, Beca finally gets comfortable in her bed, trying her hardest to get her mind to finally shut up about Chloe.

She is spent, exhausted by the onslaught of confusing feelings all day, and all she wants to do is sleep.

And forget about Chloe.

But then, there’s a noise at her door.

It’s a tiny rustle, as if someone is touching the door handle without pressing down, and Beca immediately suspects that one of the girls is trying to play a prank on her.   
She tosses her blanket aside and is about to get up and yell something reprimanding, when the door handle finally moves, and her door is slowly pushed open.

Chloe.

Beca senses it before she can even really see her.

Fuck.

Beca lies back down on her bed slowly and doesn’t dare to move otherwise. Chloe takes a few tentative steps into the room and then stays standing by the door as if unsure whether she should come in. 

The silence between them is ringing in Beca’s ears.

She has no idea what Chloe is doing here, or why she would want to speak to her now after having acted so blasé about everything all night. So, when Chloe finally takes another step towards Beca to close the door behind her, Beca’s breath hitches audibly in surprise.

For a long while, Chloe doesn’t do anything else, her frame still in the dim moonlight.   
The only sound comes from the two of them breathing shakily into the silence, and Beca suddenly wishes she still had her blanket to cover her.

She feels exposed and vulnerable without it in Chloe’s presence and she can feel her arms grow cold against the hot air of the room.

Then, Chloe moves, suddenly as if she has dared herself to do it, and Beca freezes.

Before she can even understand what is happening, Chloe closes the distance between her and the bed, and is on top of her, hips firmly planted on Beca’s, pushing Beca deep into the mattress. 

Beca is sure she is seconds from fainting.

Her body is completely overwhelmed by the sensory overload of having Chloe so close, so intimately on top of her and there’s a familiar heat building up in Beca’s stomach that threatens to devour her. 

Despite her inability to think clearly, Beca can feel Chloe trembling on top of her. Apart from that, Chloe is completely still.

When the rustling from the leaves outside her window reaches Beca, as if comforting her, Beca almost believes it is all a dream.

But then Chloe does move, and she slowly lowers her body to place each of her hands next to Beca’s head. The moonlight still tenderly illuminates the room, and upon looking up Beca finds Chloe’s eyes, which are boring into her own, and Chloe’s face is so serious that Beca feels her stomach lurch in fear of what is going to happen next.

Then, softly and almost too quiet for Beca to be able to hear it, Chloe whispers words into the dark room.

‘I didn’t sleep with him, I promise’.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all again for your feedback!   
> There will be more insight into Chloe's thoughts soon, so get ready.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a shorter one, but there's more to come very soon.
> 
> I know this fandom is really divided when it comes to angst, and I'm pretty much in the middle of those two sides, so get ready for some medium-rare angst in the future.
> 
> (But also: Bechloe will always be endgame)
> 
> I hope you enjoy this chapter from Chloe's POV.

Chloe takes a deep shaky breath. She is tucked away in a corner of the open kitchen, leaning against the sink as she watches her friends laugh and dance in the living area as through an invisible curtain.  
She has kept up the façade of the happy newly-in-love Chloe all night and paired with her efforts not to run into Beca it has exhausted her more than she would have thought.

She is tired of pretending, and she desperately needs a second to herself to sort out her feelings.

Ever since her kiss with Beca, nothing seems right anymore, and Chloe hates the fact that everything is suddenly different again after she had finally figured out so much.  
A new perspective, a new boyfriend, and new old best friends.

And now she has ruined it all. She has tried to shove all of these confusing feelings into a dark corner of her brain all day, to pretend like none of it ever happened, but, of course, it hasn’t worked. 

It still isn’t working and, seeing Beca now, Chloe is so torn between wishing the kiss never happened and wanting it to happen again that her head is starting to hurt.

And the worst thing of all: She can’t even talk to her best friend about it.

It had all happened way too quickly last night.  
Beca, standing against the wall, looking at her with unabashed desire, her own anger at Beca turning into the intense urge to touch her, to push her against the wall, and to kiss her senseless.

Chloe’s stomach gives a painful tug at the memory.

It had all fallen into place in that moment. 

Beca’s weird behaviour towards her during the trip, Beca’s anger after Chloe and Chicago had kissed. It had all made sense in that one moment when Beca looked at her, her eyes so full of yearning that Chloe felt light-headed, and in the moment right after, when their lips touched for the first time.

After the kiss, there had been an onslaught of different memories, fragments of old times that were suddenly illuminated by Chloe’s realisation that Beca was into her.

Trips to bars in which Beca would sarcastically comment on each and every one of the guys Chloe was talking to. Evenings at their apartment in which Chloe would catch Beca staring at her, and Beca would awkwardly play it down upon being discovered.  
And finally, hugs that would last a little longer than Beca’s usual hugs, with Beca’s fingers lingering on Chloe after they were over.

Chloe has always been proud of being the one to get Beca to come out of her shell and to teach her to be more affectionate.  
Now, remembering the way Beca had so desperately clung to her during their kiss, she knows there has always been more behind it.

And it scares the shit out of Chloe.

An imagine pops into her head, suddenly, and she sees herself, grinding into Beca against the wall, utterly and completely drowning in her.  
She shudders as a pang of heat surges through her stomach.  
Even now, Chloe can still feel the way Beca’s body had been pressed against her own, and she can feel herself wanting more. 

It scares her even more.

It’s not like she has never thought about it.  
She’s naturally affectionate, sure, and she has been told many times that she has no regard for other people’s personal space, but with Beca it had always been different.  
Like she had been drawn to her physically.

Last night had simply been the culmination of that.

Chloe sighs, still unable to think clearly about what any of this means.

And, from afar, she finally dares to let herself look at Beca.  
Beca is currently busy, along with Aubrey, trying to get a very drunk Lilly to give up her glass of wine. Her and Aubrey are grinning at each other while coordinating a stumbling Lilly towards the sofa and Chloe finds herself smiling along with them.

It’s the first time today that Chloe finds the perpetual look of pain and anger in Beca’s eyes replaced by genuine joy.

She only hates that she isn’t the one responsible for the way Beca is smiling right now.

Chloe is so lost in her own thoughts, that she only notices Amy when she is already standing in front of her, a big grin on her face and her eyebrows wiggling suggestively.

‘Thinking of your man-candy?’

Chloe realises that she is still smiling, and she quickly turns her back to the scene in the living room, so Amy doesn’t notice what she has really been smiling at. She knows she has to come up with something quick to get out of this conversation.

She knows where this is going.

‘Yeah, hard to think about anything else after a night with Army man, right?`

There it is. 

She has been dreading to talk to Amy all night because of this. The other girls have been nice enough not to ask too many questions and it has been easy avoiding any questions pertaining to the physical aspects of last night, but she knows Amy wouldn’t give up so easily.

She’s sick of lying.

But how is she supposed to tell Amy that she has spent the entire night with Chicago confused and distant? That she had to fake nausea to get out of sleeping with him and that she had been lying awake all night, her mind spinning with thoughts of Beca?

That this entire day, a day that should she should have spent having fun with her new boyfriend, has been filled with fake smiles and ditched kisses on her part?

She can’t.  
She can’t tell anyone.

‘Come on, I need juicy details. What else are sisters for?`

Amy playfully shoves at Chloe’s shoulder to get her attention. Chloe forces a mysterious smile. She has become good at this.

‘I don’t think that’s necessarily what sisters are for’.

She scrunches up her nose and shakes her head to feign disappointment.

‘And I thought you’d let me enjoy my conquest in peace’.

Chloe adds an auspicious wink. She knows how to speak Amy’s language, and when Amy cocks her head as if thinking, she is almost confident that she has found the right words to get Amy off her back.

But no.

Chloe can see Amy’s expression change into a smirk, and that’s when she hears Aubrey behind her, entering the kitchen. She can only hope that Beca isn’t with her when Amy finally opens her mouth.

‘Ooh yeah, I knew he was going to be a beast in bed. Good on you’.

The words surge through Chloe like fire. She feels them rise to her head, and she shushes Amy aggressively before she turns around to see if anyone else heard them.  
When she looks behind her, her eyes fall right into Beca’s.

Fuck.

Beca looks like she has been slapped in the face, and Chloe can’t bring herself to pretend like she doesn’t know why.  
Not right now, when the pain is so obviously written on Beca’s face that it resonates within Chloe as a sharp twinge in her chest.  
She’s done pretending.

The way Beca is staring at her now, blatantly, anger mixing with the pain in her face, Chloe can’t look away.  
They are both admitting it now, that there’s something between them, and there’s fear rising within Chloe. She has no idea how she is ever supposed to talk to Beca normally again after their kiss, and after having hurt her like this.

Chloe catches herself gnawing on her lip, almost so hard that it hurts, and she feels paralyzed.  
Next to her, Amy is talking about a recent one-night stand with someone from the Army, apparently oblivious to anything else that is going on in the kitchen, and Chloe whishes she could run.

At the very least, she finally wants to look away from Beca, to shield herself from this broken, hurt version of her best friend, but she still can’t move. 

She wonders if Beca is ever going to be able to forgive her.

Full of desperation now, Chloe tries to find anything other than pain and anger in Beca’s face, and just when she thinks there is a flicker of something else, something soft, pleading maybe, Amy waves her hand in front of her eyes frantically.

It’s Beca’s cue. 

She rushes out of the kitchen, and Chloe stares at the spot where Beca has been standing, her heart still hammering in her throat.

‘Did you even listen?`

Chloe slowly turns around to face Amy, who seems offended now, her arms akimbo. Shaking her head to get Beca’s face out of her mind, Chloe smiles, and takes a shot.

‘I did, it was – vivid’.

It’s likely that Amy has just been telling her an explicit story about her encounter with the strange ‘Army dude’, and she proves to be right when Amy raises her hand to high-five Chloe, who responds with a reluctant raised hand.

Chloe vaguely registers Amy saying something about finding a picture on her phone to ‘make it even more vivid’ before she hears Beca speaking from the living area. Not daring to lift her head to see what is going on, she follows Beca, who is walking up the stairs now, out of the corner of her eyes.

When Beca turns around to take one last look behind her at the girls who are waving her goodnight, Chloe quickly bows her head.

\-------

Chloe manages to keep up a halfway decent performance of a drunk but happy version of herself for about half an hour before she has to leave.  
She makes her way up the stairs quietly in the hopes that no one will notice her absence when everyone is standing around Amy who is currently teaching Emily something she claims to be a traditional Australian Wombat Dance.

When Chloe reaches the top floor, she is just about to make her way to her own room, when her eyes fall onto the closed door of Beca’s room at the far end of the hallway.  
A thought flits across her mind, just for a second, and she wants to stop herself from following it, but her legs are already moving, bringing her closer to Beca’s room.

There is an intense urge within her to see Beca, to maybe explain some things so her, and despite her hammering heart and her dry throat, which is closing up more and more with each step towards Beca’s room, she is suddenly determined.

Still, just the thought of facing Beca again wreaks havoc on Chloe’s mind, and when she finds herself at Beca’s door with her hand placed on the doorknob, she has already forgotten how she even got there. 

She still knows she has to go inside.  
She knows that she has to see Beca.

Every part of her body is shaking now, but she can’t back down. It’s like her body is drawn into the room, as if compelled, and her desire to be with Beca again is suddenly so strong that she opens the door and steps into the room without a second thought.

Chloe is immediately met by a comforting silence, and at first, she can hardly make out the shape of Beca’s body on her bed.

When her eyes start to get used to the darkness, she discovers that Beca isn’t lying under her blanket, but that it’s thrown to the side, exposing her small frame on the bed.  
She’s in shorts and a tank top and Chloe has to force herself not to stare, her mind already in overdrive at the prospect of being close to Beca again.  
Across the room, Beca’s chest is rising and falling rapidly, her breath released in puffs into the small room, and Chloe knows that Beca is definitely awake and feeling the same way Chloe is feeling right now.

It suddenly feels entirely to intimate, the two of them alone in the small room, the sounds of their breathing the only thing that’s filling the silence, and Chloe’s heart is beating so fast in her throat that it hurts.

She suddenly can only think of one way to solve this, one way to alleviate this tension.

And then she’s on top of Beca.

Just like last night, she isn’t quite sure how it happens.  
It’s like her body is guiding her, her desire overtaking any rational thought and controlling her every movement.

As soon as she feels Beca underneath her, Chloe’s entire body feels like it’s on fire. Her hips are firmly planted on Beca’s and Chloe can feel the heat that is building up where their bodies are touching.

She can hardly make out Beca’s face in the dim moonlight, but her eyes get used to the dark quickly and when they do, the sight of Beca beneath her makes her breath hitch.

Just like last night, Beca’s eyes are burning with desire.

It sends chills down Chloe’s spine. She knows that Beca is trying to hide it, trying to hide how much Chloe affects her, and her lips are pressed together tightly as she attempts to avoid Chloe’s gaze, but it’s still obvious. Chloe knows her all too well.

Chloe thinks back to last night, when Beca’s declaration of arousal had scared her, impossibly so, and she had left Beca panting against the wall, her own heart hammering in her chest. The moan, let out against her lips, had made the moment impossibly definitive, and it had overwhelmed her.

Now, she wants nothing more than to hear Beca make those noises again, and a flash of heat shoots to Chloe’s center at the mere thought of it.  
Beneath her, Beca looks beautiful, her face illuminated by the moonlight, her hair loosely falling on the pillow around her, and Chloe’s heart aches with the distance that is still between them.

She changes her position slightly to bend down and to place her hands next to Beca’s head. It’s still as if she’s guided by a powerful force that pulls her closer to Beca, like her body simply needs to be close to the woman beneath her, and it makes her head spin.

And then Beca shifts. She’s waiting now, her lips parted, and she’s not looking away anymore. Her eyes are on Chloe, watching her every move, raking over Chloe’s body and the urge within Chloe to grab Beca and kiss her, to grind down into her increases tenfold.

She just has to tell Beca one thing.  
She has to make sure that Beca knows.

Chloe is sure it won’t be enough. Can’t make up for the way she has been treating Beca all day, but right now she feels like it is all she can manage.  
She desperately hopes that Beca knows what it means without having to say it.  
That Beca knows that it means that Beca is in Chloe’s head, constantly, and that Chloe can’t think straight since their kiss.

Her voice is barely a whisper when she finally manages to speak.

‘I didn’t sleep with him’.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I guess writing smut is how I cope with social isolation.
> 
> Thank you to everyone who is reading and commenting!

Beca has no idea how to respond.  
Chloe’s face is hovering above her, her eyes dark and filled with lust, and Beca still feels like she is dreaming.

Her body is burning where Chloe is pressed against it, solidly and securely on top of her, and her mind is racing, unable to form any coherent thought. Their eyes are locked now, and Beca finds herself melting under Chloe’s stare, her desire growing with every moment that Chloe isn’t getting closer, isn’t touching her, and she almost feels a little pathetic, the way she can feel her lips part at the promise of a kiss.

But within this stillness of them just looking at each other, through their heavy pants of anticipation, Beca discovers something else in Chloe’s eyes, something beyond the glaring shimmer of desire.   
There is a softness in Chloe’s expression, and it reminds Beca that this is her Chloe. Her Chloe who is loving and caring and perfect, and there is suddenly no doubt in her mind that she is telling the truth.

Beca knows that Chloe isn’t a prude and has never been shy when it comes to sex, so her having abstained from sleeping with Chicago, someone she has been annoyingly infatuated with all week, means something.

Beca just isn’t quite sure what that is.

Still, despite all her reservations, despite all her previous anger towards Chloe, it is enough for her. She doesn’t know if it’s the way Chloe is looking at her now, or the way the heat is building up almost unbearably in her stomach, but she decides to throw caution into the wind.

She has to, or she is going to go insane with need.

So, after a last deep but hitched breath, she lifts her head boldly to capture Chloe’s lips with her own.   
Immediately, it’s like fireworks are going off within her and when Chloe responds eagerly and pushes Beca back into the pillow, she goes willingly. It’s a soft kiss at first, their lips moving against each other tentatively as if to try each other out, and Beca can hear herself sigh against Chloe’s lips.

Her heart is hammering in her throat, and a comforting warmth spreads through her entire body, pure bliss taking hold of her with Chloe so close.

It doesn’t take long for the kiss to grow more passionate, desperate even, and Beca can feel Chloe grow impatient on top of her until she finally breaks the kiss. Beca can hardly open her eyes, her breath is coming out in short staccato puffs, and she finds herself praying to the A Capella Gods that Chloe won’t stop. 

But Chloe isn’t moving away like last time.

Still lying there with her eyes closed, Beca can feel Chloe’s hand softly on her chin, as if beckoning her to look at her. The touch, small as it is, feels intimate, even more so than their current position and Beca has to gather up all of her strength to open her eyes to face Chloe.

When she does, she is instantly reminded of their last kiss, and a pang of heat shoots down her stomach and pools at her center. Chloe’s eyes are even darker than before, burning into her own, and the unconcealed desire within them almost scares Beca.

But when Chloe’s lips crash down onto hers again, any rational thought leaves Beca’s brain and she shuts her eyes again, ready to be consumed by the woman on top of her. Through her haze of frenzied unfocused kisses, Beca registers vaguely that Chloe is shifting on top of her until she feels Chloe’s full weight resting on her and one of Chloe’s legs between her own, pressing down.

It’s too much and not enough at the same time, and when Chloe deepens the kiss even more, licking into Beca’s mouth passionately, Beca feels like she is about to faint.

It’s immediately so much more than it had been last night, and Beca is soon reduced to a whimpering mess underneath Chloe. When Beca can’t keep her hips from bucking into Chloe’s thigh anymore and a first, chocked moan escapes her mouth, Chloe halts, just for a second in which Beca fears that this is Chloe’s cue to stop again. 

Beca mentally prepares herself for the weight on top of her to vanish, for Chloe to step away like she had the first time, but it doesn’t happen. More so, Chloe’s movements cease only to start up again with purpose, almost as if Beca’s moan has awakened something within her, and when Beca captures Chloe’s lips in a searing kiss, Chloe softly whimpers into Beca’s mouth in return.

It’s the hottest noise Beca has ever heard.

It makes her head spin, and as her movements grow more frantic, her hands grabbing Chloe’s back to pull her closer, Chloe lets out another whimper, followed by a moan that almost makes Beca’s head explode.

She can feel her body grow hotter with each little movement of Chloe’s on top of her, with each little sound Chloe makes, and when Chloe finally starts up a rhythm, slowly grinding into Beca, Beca almost loses consciousness.

She can feel the slick heat between her legs against Chloe’s bare thigh, and she is sure that Chloe can feel it, too. There is a steady string of soft moans escaping Beca now, released against Chloe’s eager lips, and Beca registers the fact that Chloe has pushed her hand under her top only when Chloe is already there, grabbing the bare flesh of her hip.

The air around them, sticky and electric, hits Beca’s burning exposed skin and, somewhere in the back of her head, Beca registers that she is close now, her hips bucking uncontrollably into Chloe’s thigh and she wonders if Chloe is aware of how far this has already gone.

Then, suddenly, as if she momentarily left her body, Beca sees herself from above, floating under the ceiling.

Her body is writhing underneath Chloe’s, her entire body flushed with desire, and while she can feel a familiar heat built up in her center, she can feel fear rising along with it.

Here, she is, completely at Chloe’s mercy, teetering on the edge of coming apart at her hands, and Chloe still hasn’t talked to her about anything.

She suddenly knows she can’t let this happen, can’t lose this much control when she isn’t even sure what Chloe’s motivations are, and, upon coming back from the ceiling and into her own body, she yanks her mouth away from Chloe’s while trying to stop her hips from bucking into Chloe’s thigh.

Chloe stops moving immediately.

For a few moments, all Beca can hear are her own shallow breaths, uneven and shaky, while she is desperately trying to get her body to cool down. Above her, Chloe seems just as out of breath, motionless apart from the trembling rising and falling of her chest onto Beca’s.

When Beca finally opens her eyes, her heart almost breaks at the sight.   
Chloe is still pressed against her, but her head is lifted now, and there’s tears in her eyes along with a look of deep sorrow, or maybe desperation, and this time Chloe isn’t trying to hide it.  
An intense urge to comfort Chloe comes over Beca, and she lifts her hand carefully to tuck a lose strand of hair behind Chloe’s ear, letting her hand rest on Chloe’s cheek after.

Chloe’s expression immediately changes, she seems almost relieved now, and when she smiles down at Beca bashfully, Beca thinks that she finally looks like her Chloe again. Tender blue eyes are deeply staring into her own, reassuring and warm, and Beca can feel a dopy smile creep into her face.

‘Beca-’

Chloe starts, her voice so soft that is makes Beca’s heart flutter, only to be immediately cut off by a loud bang at Beca’s door.

And then two things happen at once.

Chloe moves away from Beca as if she has been burned, her smile making way for a look of horror on her face, while the door is pushed open violently, revealing the swaying figures of Emily and Aubrey against the bright light of the hallway.

Beca barely manages to pull her top back down her body, while Chloe backs away so frantically that she bumps into the wall next to Beca’s bed with an audible thump.

‘Ha!’,

Emily points at Chloe as if she is a cop who has finally caught the fugitive criminal in the act.  
Beca is sure the fear in Chloe’s face is mirrored in her own expression and she can only hope that Aubrey and Emily’s eyes haven’t gotten used to the dark within the room yet.

‘Gotcha!’,

Emily yells while almost unable to hold in her laughter and Beca suddenly knows that they are safe, because none of the girls would ever suspect what has just been going on between them. She is almost disappointed.

Then she hears Aubrey’s voice pierce through the darkness.

‘Chloe, honestly, you could have gotten out of doing that dance without having us look for you for hours.`

Beca looks at Chloe.  
She has no idea what Chloe is going to say to get out of this, and her own brain is still dangerously slow in keeping up with what is happening around her while the ache between her legs traitorously overpowers her senses.   
Next to her, Chloe shuts her eyes tightly, her entire face contorted as if she is in pain, but when she opens them a second later, she looks completely transformed.  
Beca recognises the fake smile in an instant, and suddenly feels an overwhelming sense of disappointment that Chloe still wants to pretend like none of this is happening.

When she speaks, Chloe sounds almost normal, and Beca is sure that she is the only one who can her the trembling in her voice that she can’t quite conceal.

‘Guys, it wasn’t hours. I’ve been here for maybe ten minutes’.

There’s a stabbing pain in Beca’s chest at the words. Ten minutes. It took only ten minutes to change everything between them. 

Chloe continues, seemingly unfazed.

‘And I just wanted to see if Beca was feeling better’.

Beca snorts involuntarily at the words, and Chloe whips her head around to look at her imploringly, her lips pressed tightly together. Beca feels like she could cry.

‘But she’s not, uhm, feeling better, so I guess I can come back down with you guys.’

Aubrey turns to Beca who can feel her head grow hot under the stare.

‘The others wanted to try out the pool in the backyard, so it’s a little quieter downstairs. If you can’t sleep with all the yelling in the garden?’

Aubrey vaguely gestures towards Beca’s window, and only now can Beca hear the roaring laughter and the splashing sounds coming from the outside.

But she can only nod, the rest of her body still immobile as she watches Emily and Aubrey turn around to leave. Chloe is already halfway off the bed, scrambling to get herself untangled from Beca’s sheets when Beca’s body finally obeys her again and she decides to give the whole thing one last shot.

One last chance for Chloe to make it right.

So, fully aware that she might be throwing her last shred of dignity away, she finally opens her mouth before Chloe is out of the room.

‘Wait, please’.

Beca is shocked at how hoarse her voice sounds, the breathlessness still obvious, and Chloe actually stops for a second, while Aubrey and Emily are already out of sight, laughing loudly somewhere in the hallway.

Chloe is standing in the door frame, still, save for the rising and falling of her shoulders, and Beca almost thinks she is going to turn around to stay, almost believes that Chloe won’t hurt her again this time.

But she doesn’t come back.

Instead, after one last deep breath, Chloe rushes out the door, hurrying after the other girls, and Beca feels like she has been punched in the stomach.

She can still feel the slick heat between her legs, the pounding in her chest from when Chloe had her on the edge of coming undone, and finally, her anger wins over any remaining fear of her friends finding out about whatever it is that her and Chloe are doing.

The image of Chloe softly smiling down at her from just seconds ago pops into her head, and Beca suddenly can’t believe how that Chloe can turn so quickly into this other Chloe, closed-off and quiet like a complete stranger.

But Beca doesn’t want to give her up just yet, her Chloe, and she decides that this time, she won’t let Chloe get away with pretending like nothing has happened.

Determined, she gets up, her legs still weak and shaky, and stumbles towards her door that Chloe has left open. Before she can leave, she catches sight of herself in the mirror on her closet, and even though she can’t see herself well in the dark room, she knows she looks completely dishevelled.

Her top is still wrinkled from where Chloe had it bunched up in her hands, her hair is tousled, and her cheeks are flush with arousal and anger.

She looks at herself in disbelief for a second, unable to comprehend that it is Chloe who is responsible for this, that it is Chloe who just had her seconds away from an orgasm, and her stomach gives a painful tug at the realisation. For years, she has wanted this, dreamed about it, but not one of those dream scenarios had ended like this, with Chloe abandoning her and Beca alone and desperate in her room.

Beca quickly swallows the lump that threatens to form in her throat before her she shakes her head, unwilling to let the sadness take over her anger.

Because she needs to be angry at Chloe right now, needs to confront her right away, or she will never do it.

And then Beca is on her way towards the stairs, her thoughts too loud to listen to any of them, and before she can stop herself, she is standing in the living room. It’s almost empty now with only Aubrey, Emily, Cynthia and Chloe standing next to the table, talking, while the splashing noises of the other Bellas outside by the pool are filling the room.

The music is turned down, quieter than before, but Beca still feels like she has to yell to make herself heard. She doesn’t give herself time to think her next step through and her fists are balled up and trembling next to her body when she finally speaks.

‘Chloe, what the fuck?’


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Chloe finally comes around.

Everybody in the room is staring at her now, but Beca doesn’t care. All she can see is Chloe in the back of the room, almost hiding behind Aubrey, her mouth slightly open in disbelief.

But she’s not saying anything, not even acknowledging Beca with her eyes and it makes Beca even angrier.

‘Don’t you dare act like nothing happened again.’

Beca can hardly form coherent sentences. At the sight of Chloe so vulnerable in the corner she can feel her anger fading, sadness threatening to take over entire being, mixed with an overwhelming sense of despair.

She has no idea how all of this happened in the mere span of 24 hours.

Beca tries to catch Chloe’s gaze, tries to find the connection between them that was there only minutes ago up in her room. But Chloe’s eyes are blank, flitting around the room as if she’s looking for an escape. Beca is desperately searching for the familiar brightness, for the loving gentleness within them, but she comes up empty.

Beca’s shoulders fall in exasperation, and her voice trembles when she speaks again, sounding a lot less firm that she hoped.

‘For fuck’s sake Chloe, please just talk to me.’

Beca hates that she sounds like she’s begging, hates that Chloe has forced her to be this vulnerable in front of people, but she is still determined to finally get Chloe to realise what she is doing to her.

Chloe is still not moving, her expression unreadable, as if what is happening doesn’t concern her, while her eyes are staring at something far away from where Beca is standing.

‘Chloe!’

This time her voice obeys her.  
It’s loud and clear and Chloe reacts, a visible jolt going through her body, and she finally looks at Beca. But Beca doesn’t get the chance to say anything else.  
Startled at Beca’s display of anger, Aubrey is starting to walk towards her now, hesitant, almost like she is trying to calm down a scared-up animal.

‘Beca, calm down, okay’.

It’s the first time that Aubrey’s motherly tone doesn’t anger Beca. It makes her feel emboldened, and she is suddenly aware that this house, this room even, is filled with her friends, people who love her, and that she is safe.

She shifts her gaze from Aubrey to Chloe, fixing Chloe with her eyes until she shifts uncomfortably under the stare.

‘What the hell are you doing to me, Chloe?’

Beca wants to sound angry still, but the question comes out a lot quieter than intended, and Beca can hear the anxious quiver in her voice. She hasn’t considered it before, but she realises now that she is scared of the answer.

In the middle of the room, Aubrey is still looking back and forth between Beca and Chloe, concerned, like a football coach who needs to damage control her team.  
Her voice is still incredibly calm when she turns to Chloe.

‘What is going on, Chloe?’

Chloe still hasn’t moved from her spot, and her eyes are now frantically going back and forth between the other girls, seemingly hoping for something to happen to get her out of this.

But everyone is just staring at her now, and Beca almost feels a little bad.  
Yes, Chloe has been an asshole to her last night and most of today, but she suddenly wonders if it’s the best idea to confront Chloe about this in front of three of their best friends.  
She almost manages to speak up to end this, to ask Chloe to continue this somewhere more privately when Chloe finally says something.

‘We just kissed a little bit last night, and Beca is making a big deal out of it’.

Chloe adds a faux-exasperated sigh to her words, trying to alleviate the tension, and Beca feels like she has been punched in the face. She knows what Chloe is trying to make this look like. Good old Chloe and her disregard for personal space and weird little Beca with her people issues had a little too much drunk fun and that is it.

But Beca can tell that no one is buying it.   
Chloe is shifting uncomfortably back and forth on her feet and it is obvious that there is more to the story. It’s obvious that not even Chloe is believing her version of the truth.

Emily still tries to help.

‘Okay, so – you two kissed. That’s no big deal, right? We all had like – a million shots last night’.

She forces a smile, both at Beca and at Chloe, and Beca suddenly feels bad for having dragged everyone else into this. She bows her head to examine her feet, unsure now what she even wanted to get out of this in the first place. 

She only looks back up when Chloe suddenly speaks again, her voice too weak to properly convey the casual tone she is trying to put on.

‘Yeah it was just a little kissing between friends. No big deal’.

Beca freezes. Her anger comes back in full force when her eyes find Chloe’s and she is met with a blank stare, no trace of the Chloe that has been in Beca’s arms just minutes ago, and she snaps.

‘Oh, and what was that up in my room just now? Was that supposed to be just a little fucking between friends?’

Beca regrets the words the moment she says them.  
Everyone’s heads snap around to look at her, speechless, and not even Aubrey can seem to find something to say.

Emily is turning around uncomfortably, looking back and forth between Chloe and Beca as if she is trying to figure out if what Beca just said is the truth.

And Chloe’s face is suddenly full of fear. It’s somehow worse than if she were angry, and Beca feels like a complete asshole.  
She wanted Chloe to finally talk to her, to admit that there is something between them, and she realises now that she probably just achieved the opposite.

How is Chloe ever going to talk to her after this?

And then Chloe moves, abruptly, and she trips over the leg of a chair before she finally starts to run out of the room towards the front entrance, the door slamming behind her.

Just before she reaches the door, Beca catches one last glimpse of her face. There are tears streaming down it, and it makes Beca feel like shit.

And then Chloe’s gone.

‘Fuck’,

Beca mumbles the word to herself.  
She wants to run, too, wants to hide somewhere from all of this, but she can’t get her feet to work and she’s starting to tremble so much now that she is threatening to fall over.

As if on cue, the other Bellas are starting to move now, clearing their throats to fill the deafening silence following the slam of the door. From outside, the yells of joy from the Bellas faintly penetrate the speechless void between the girls, and it almost feels like they are mocked in their inability to alleviate the tension.

It’s Cynthia who speaks first then, her voice steady and warm.

‘Aubrey why don’t you go look for Chloe? She probably needs someone to talk to. And uhm-`

She stops for a second, her eyes meeting Beca’s reassuringly before she continues.

‘Maybe Beca and I can go to talk upstairs?’

Beca nods, glad that someone is taking charge of the situation, and when they all disperse in different directions, mumbling quiet goodbyes, Cynthia gently nudges Beca to get her to move.

Up in her room, Beca immediately heads to her bed, her mind still racing as she plops down onto the mattress and covers her face beneath her hands. She sighs.

‘That was so fucking stupid.’

Beca is afraid of what Cynthia might answer, afraid, that Cynthia is going to scold her for making such a scene, and when she hears Cynthia drag the desk chair of her room closer to the bed and sit down, she glimpses through her fingers anxiously.

‘You were angry. And we’re all stupid when we’re angry.’

Cynthia states the words simply, reassuringly, and Beca finds herself hoping that Cynthia would ask her more questions. She is desperate now to tell someone about her and Chloe, and she is desperate to finally share her feelings. Finally tell someone how in love with Chloe she is.

When Cynthia stays quiet, Beca decides so start the conversation herself.

‘You knew, right? You knew that something was going on between us last night.’

Cynthia chuckles. It’s a low, comforting sound and Beca can’t help but smile. Of course, she knew.

‘Girl, I can’t believe none of the others noticed. You two had hook-up written all over you.’

Beca chuckles, albeit the memory of the night being a painful one by now, and seemingly years away. There is a pause and then Cynthia clears her throat, her voice quiet now.

‘And Chloe couldn’t take her eyes off you all night’.

Beca scoffs.

‘Yeah, sure. You mean, she couldn’t get away fast enough.’

‘You don’t mean that. And you know that that is not true.’

Finally, Beca takes her hands off her face and looks at Cynthia. She is leaning against the back of the chair, a knowing smile on her face, and Beca almost throws her pillow at her. No, Beca knows it is not true. She knows, because she has seen it. Has seen Chloe’s eyes full of adoration and desire for Beca, and she can still feel Chloe’s body pressed against her own.

And yet, the image of Chloe’s blank stare when Beca asked her to finally acknowledge those feelings overpowers all of those memories.

‘Maybe.’,

Beca speaks slowly, carefully choosing her words.

‘But I totally ruined it now. I really shouldn’t have done it like that.’

Beca lets herself fall onto the mattress with a groan and continues.

‘But she bailed on me, twice.’

Cynthia just smiles.

‘So, you really like her, huh?’

‘Uh yeah, dude. That’s probably why I’m acting like such an idiot.’

It feels incredibly freeing to be able to talk about her feelings this openly. Beca never once believed that anyone would actually be weird about her liking Chloe, but it is still nice not be left alone with those feelings anymore.  
She finally understands why all the other girls constantly have to talk about their crushes on guys, or about how great their boyfriends are.

‘You had every right to be angry, Beca.’

Cynthia sounds more serious now.

‘But I don’t think she meant to just string you along.’

‘I know-’,

There’s a tremble in Beca’s voice again and she swallows.

‘I just felt so stupid before. Just now, we almost- you know, and right after she looked at me like I had done something to her. Like she was scared of me.’

‘Duh.’

It’s a different response than Beca expected and it makes her sit back up in her bed, looking at Cynthia dumbfounded.

‘She just got together with her boyfriend-’,

Cynthia emphasises the last word, and Beca feels her heart ache at the mere word.

‘- and now she’s found out that she likes you. Really likes you, from what I saw, and she must be scared shitless about what that means for her.’

Beca swallows audibly, her throat tightening up. She feels selfish suddenly, but simultaneously still angry that Chloe apparently thought that denial would be the way out of her dilemma.

‘I- I uh –‘,

She can hardly find the words.

‘I guess. But she could have talked to me about it and-’ 

Beca stops in her tracks. There is a noise by the door behind Cynthia, and when she looks up, there’s Chloe.

She’s standing there by herself, her cheeks red, chewing on her bottom lip, and her eyes can only hold Beca’s gaze for a second.  
Immediately, Beca’s heart starts beating in her chest like crazy.

‘I should have talked to you about it.’

Chloe mumbles the words, as if she is saying them to herself, but Beca can still feel that Chloe is finally ready to talk to her. Suddenly, she just doesn’t know if she is ready herself. 

Chloe has been crying, it’s visible on her face, and Beca’s entire body screams with the need to get up and wrap Chloe up in her arms. But she stays put, waiting anxiously for Chloe’s next words.

With a quiet chuckle, Cynthia gets up and throws a last encouraging smile and a wink towards Beca. At the door, Chloe has to give way to let Cynthia leave, and in order to do so, she takes a few steps into the room.

Behind her, Cynthia closes the door, softly, but it feels loud and final, the two of them now alone and closed-off from the rest of the Bellas.  
For a long moment, Chloe is just standing there, and Beca notices that her hair is still tousled from where Beca has grabbed it just minutes prior, and she almost has to laugh at the realisation.

This was all way too much to handle in one night, and she suddenly wishes she had given Chloe more time. Still, through the silence of the room, there is a stillness, a calm that radiates from Chloe now and Beca realises that her anger from before has completely vanished.

From her safe distance, Chloe finally looks at Beca and Beca doesn’t look away when their eyes meet. Chloe’s lips are quivering, and her blue eyes glisten in the dim light of the small lamp in the corner next to the door.

Finally, after a deep audible breath, she steps closer to the bed, and when she stops, she is still staring deeply into Beca’s eyes as if anchoring herself.

‘Fuck, Beca, I’m so sorry.’

It’s barely a whisper, but Beca knows that Chloe means it. Chloe is slowly moving even closer now until she reaches the chair and sits down in front of Beca. The distance feels too big and not big enough at the same time. Without the possibility to just close their eyes and press their bodies against each other, the moment almost feels even more intimate. More real.

No, there is no way out of this except for talking to each other. No escape in the form of overpowering desire silencing all rational thought within their minds, and Beca almost wishes Chloe would come closer and kiss her again without having to talk at all.

But Beca knows that is what she wanted from Chloe and that Chloe is trying to give it to Beca now.

So, she takes a deep breath and sits up a little straighter, ready to let Chloe explain.


	7. Chapter 7

Chloe takes a deep breath and straightens out her shoulders before opening her mouth and then closing it again.

Beca can see that Chloe is shaking while playing with her hands in her lap, and her instinct to make Chloe feel better with a joke or an innocuous question almost wins. But Beca is determined not to speak before Chloe this time. She needs Chloe to say something first, needs Chloe to show her that this is important to her as well.

When Chloe finally speaks, her voice is shaky, as if she’s on the verge of tears.

‘I really wish I handled this all differently, Beca. I don’t know what came over me, uhm, before’.

Her eyes travel over the bed and Beca knows exactly the kind of images that must be going through Chloe’s head right now. They both clear their throats, almost simultaneously, before Chloe goes on.

‘You know, I’ve always been so sure about everything. What I want, who I like, who I want to be with, who I want to kiss’,

There’s a pause in which Chloe looks at Beca, her eyes bright, the blank expression finally banned from her face, but her cheeks are coated with tears, and Beca swallows thickly. Then, Chloe averts her eyes as if embarrassed and continues.

‘-who I want to sleep with.’

Both of them are silent after this. Beca can see Chloe’s gaze shift, as if remembering something, and Beca knows they’re both thinking of it. Of just an hour ago when they were on top of each other, breathing each other in, full of desire for each other.

The memory makes Beca’s heart race. Before she knows what she is doing she can suddenly hear herself ask something, her voice breathy.

‘And with me, uhm, you’re not? Sure, I mean?`

Beca doesn’t know if she wants to know Chloe’s answer, and she grows increasingly insecure when Chloe doesn’t reply right away. Opposite her, Chloe cocks her head, her eyes traveling over Beca’s body and Beca grows hot under the exploratory stare. There’s a familiar fire in Chloe’s eyes now, and something else. Something that Beca has seen before, in this exact bed, when Chloe had looked down at her and tried talk to her. Something that Beca prays is more than friendly adoration.

‘No.’,

The answer is simple and Beca’s heart drops. She can feel the anger rise within her again when Chloe shakes her head.

‘But not because I’m not sure.’

She emphasises the last word, and Beca doesn’t understand anything.

‘Last night when I kissed you, I knew that I wanted it.’

Chloe smiles, absentmindedly, as if to herself and then continues.

‘And tonight –‘, there’s a pause and an audible sigh, ‘-tonight I knew that I wanted you. I was sure of that. But Beca-‘,

Chloe’s voice is suddenly louder and agitated. Beca knows this Chloe, frantic and overwhelmed, and she can only wish that it won’t result in Chloe running away again.  
But Chloe doesn’t make a move suggesting that. Her hands are rubbing her thighs and her leg grows more and more restless, but she stays.

‘I’m just not – sure of what to do with this. Or how to do this. You’re my best friend, and now it’s all so different.’

As if to emphasise what she means, she looks Beca dead in the eye, and the intensity almost knocks Beca’s breath away. Yes, Beca knows it’s all different now.

‘And with Chicago-‘, Beca’s jaw clenches at the mere mention of his name and Chloe notices, choosing her next words carefully, her voice quiet again.

‘I know what I’m getting, I guess.’

Beca is suddenly terrified. She realises that she hadn’t even really considered this conversation ending with Chloe telling her she was going to choose Chicago over her. Through all of this, through all of her pain, she has still been sure, subconsciously, that in the end it was going to be her and Chloe. Together. 

She feels herself grow desperate, and she swallows her disappointment, deciding that she can’t give up yet. And she knows she won’t let Chloe get out of this so easily.

‘I understand that this is a lot. It’s a lot for me, too. It’s really fucking overwhelming’,

Chloe’s lip quivers at Beca’s words.

‘But last night, you kissed me, Chloe. And it was you who –‘,

Beca doesn’t know how to finish the sentence. She gestures vaguely at the bed, embarrassed suddenly to look at Chloe again. It still sends a jolt of heat through her thinking about Chloe on top of her, grinding down into her and she is sure that her heart is beating so loudly now that Chloe can hear it.

‘And now you’re telling me you wanted all of it-’

Beca trails off. She is sure there is a question somewhere in her words, but she can’t identify what it is. Chloe, however, seems to know what it is, and after a few excruciating moments of silence, she answers.

‘I didn’t say I still want to be with him, Beca.’

Chloe says it slowly, as if she is telling Beca a secret but can’t be more distinct about it.  
Beca feels her heart grow at the words, the promise of something more, something real with Chloe suddenly in the air. But then, as if to get her back to reality, the images of Chloe and Chicago at the party pop into her head.

Chloe dancing with him as if nothing was wrong, talking to Beca nonchalantly as if the kiss never happened.  
Beca can feel the anger rise within her now, uncertainty slowly taking over.

‘Okay, so what does that mean?’

She knows she sounds demanding and that Chloe can see the way her jaw clenches while speaking. Still fidgeting in her chair, Chloe grows even more restless, uncomfortably shifting around the chair. Her mouth is open as if she wants to say something, but nothing comes out.

‘You went home with him. You kissed me, acted like nothing happened, and then you fucking went about your night as if everything was fine.’

Beca is shocked herself now how angry she is. It feels like all the bottled-up emotions from the last days are coming out at once, and she wants to stop them, but she can’t.

‘Like, why did you come here tonight? Did you want to see how it would feel? Did you want to see how much I’m at your mercy? Did you like that you have so much power over me? Did you ever, just once, think about me during this whole thing?’

When all the words are out, Beca is out of breath. Her anger is almost gone, as if it evaporated with the words in the air, but her hands are still balled to fists in her lap.  
There’s a heavy silence in the room, the only sound coming from the rustling of the leaves outside, and Beca notices that Chloe is completely still now.

Then, she gets up and takes a step towards Beca, taking her chair with her, until she sits down again. Her knees are now only millimetres away from Beca’s bed and Beca is glad that she is still sitting cross-legged, her legs safely tucked away from Chloe’s. 

Beca can hear how nervous Chloe is, her breath hitching now and then, and her voice trembling when she finally speaks.

‘I know how fucked up that was. I was so horrible to you even though I was the one who-started it. I just didn’t know what to do. I had just gotten together with him, like, two hours ago and I couldn’t believe how much I liked that kiss-‘

Chloe stops for a second and looks up at Beca, who is chewing angrily on her lip.

‘-with you’.

‘Yeah right.’

Beca knows she sounds like an angry child when she mumbles the words, but she can’t help herself.

The memories of Chloe ignoring her all day are still so vivid and jarring that it’s suddenly hard to believe Chloe’s apologies. Yes, she had been with Chicago for about two hours. So, wouldn’t it have been easier to just break it off then and there? Or even this morning instead of spending the entire day with him? And why did Chloe just run away tonight, leaving Beca alone and confused in her bed?

‘Beca, please.’

Chloe sounds needy now, almost desperate. She stretches out one of her hands and lightly touches Beca thigh. The touch is so surprising, so sudden that Beca can’t help but stare at the hand on her thigh, dumbfounded, and even Chloe seems surprised by her own action, a jolt going through her upon touching Beca as if she is burned.

Still, her hand remains on Beca’s thigh and Beca can feel her flesh burn where her fingers are. She almost feels embarrassed that Chloe can so easily get her body to react, almost hates the thoughts that are immediately going through her mind, but she can’t get herself to care.

With her last ounce of strength, she moves her leg away from Chloe, only a few millimetres, but it’s enough. Chloe’s hand sinks down to the mattress, as if too weak to hold itself up on its own, and then it stays there.

‘Just-’,

Beca starts, her voice so quiet she can hardly hear it herself. She feels tired, and she wants nothing more than to be in Chloe’s arms, but she stays strong.

‘What was that? When you- when we almost-’,

Beca still can’t say it. She can still remember the way she has worded it downstairs in front of the others, and she cringes at the thought.

Chloe is slightly leaning forward with her arm still weirdly placed on Beca’s mattress, outstretched like a bridge between the two of them. Beca can feel Chloe’s breath quicken, short puffs of air reaching her face, and only then does she realise how close they are.

Beca catches herself thinking how easy it would be to close the distance between them and to kiss Chloe again. Her lips tingle at the thought, her stomach twisting in anticipation, and she can feel her face move closer towards Chloe’s as though she is under a spell. Chloe’s eyes are boring into Beca’s, and Beca notices that Chloe is moving closer as well, her lips slightly parted, holding her breath.

But then Chloe clears her throat and breaks the spell.

‘Sorry.’,

She breathes the word and Beca’s stomach gives a tug at how husky her voice sounds. She still can’t get her brain to work properly, unsure if she has just been rejected or if Chloe finally wants to give her an answer. So, she just stays still, staring at Chloe.

‘Honestly, I don’t know why I came in here before. Or maybe I do. I wanted to make sure that you knew that I didn’t sleep with- with him.’

Chloe takes a deep breath and sits back a little.

‘You have to believe me. But when I saw you on the bed, it all came back to me. Kissing you at the party, the way you looked at me, the way you-’

There’s a pause and Beca knows exactly what Chloe is thinking of.

‘-the way you were- into it’. Chloe screws her eyes shut as if embarrassed and breathes out in defeat. ‘I have no idea how to say any of this.’

When Chloe opens her eyes again, she isn’t looking at Beca. Her hand, however, remains on the mattress and Beca resorts to staring at that instead of Chloe, feeling just as embarrassed as Chloe looks right now.

‘I think I wanted that again tonight. But not just to feel desired or whatever. I mean I did want to be desired, but it was about you. It was about you wanting me.’

When Chloe says the word ‘you’ she finally looks at Beca again and Beca can feel the stare boring into her forehead. She is nervous suddenly, even more so than before, and she can feel herself care less and less about getting all the answers she has demanded of Chloe.  
But Chloe is still speaking, not taking her eyes off Beca.

‘Because I want you, too. And it was such a shock to realise that that I just- panicked. I think I just hadn’t noticed before that night. I have never thought about the way you look at me, but now- thinking back-’

Chloe trails off, chewing on her bottom lip now, apparently trying to find the right words to say whatever she wants to say next.

But Beca doesn’t let her go on.

Without thinking, she grabs Chloe’s arm and pulls her off her chair and into a forceful kiss. There is a surprised squeak from Chloe, but she hesitates only for a second before responding to the kiss, melting into Beca.

And Beca decides to shove all the other questions, everything she is still unsure about, aside. Because right now she needs this. She needs Chloe.

She wraps her arms around Chloe’s back and pulls her in while lying down the mattress. Chloe obliges instantly, positioning herself above Beca, pushing her deep into the mattress. Somewhere in the back of her head, Beca realises how perfectly Chloe’s body fits into hers.

And suddenly, it feels like no time has passed between the last time they were on this bed and now. The familiar heat in Beca’s stomach comes back in full force with Chloe back on top of her, and her mind is racing with what might happen next.

She feels herself pulling at Chloe, frantically trying to get her even closer, to feel her between her legs again, but Chloe seems determined to take it slow, chuckling against Beca’s lips when Beca huffs in frustration.

Then, Chloe props herself up on one elbow, getting a little space between them, and Beca tries to restrain herself from grabbing Chloe to pull her in again. She lets Chloe set the pace now, lets Chloe kiss her deeply and thoroughly while she tries to keep her hips from bucking into her.

Then, Chloe lifts her head up slightly, breaking the kiss. The hand next to Beca’s head lifts up slightly to cup Beca’s cheek, her thumb tracing lazy circles over Beca’s heated flesh.

‘See this.’,

Beca opens her eyes, surprised to hear Chloe speak.

‘I have never felt this way when kissing anybody.’

As if to prove herself right Chloe dips her head back down to capture Beca’s lips in another kiss. It’s still slow and careful, but it sets Beca’s entire body on edge all over again.

When Chloe lifts her head back up, Beca is breathing heavily, her lips following Chloe’s for a second before she lets her head fall back onto the pillow.

‘Isn’t this scary to you?’

Beca opens her eyes and finds Chloe looking down at her, and through the burning of desire, Beca can see it. She has seen it before, right after Chloe had kissed her last night, and when they were almost caught this evening. Insecurity, and maybe a little fear.

Beca smiles at Chloe reassuringly before she answers, her voice thick and heavy.

‘Yeah, it’s pretty scary’.

But when she feels Chloe’s lips on her own again, her body relaxing into the feeling of Chloe all around her, encompassing her, she thinks that it isn’t scary at all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Man, these past few days have been Bechloe missing hours for sure.  
> So because I've been busy reading fanfic instead of writing it, this is a short one.


	8. Chapter 8

It doesn’t take long until Chloe’s hand is under Beca’s shirt again. Beca’s entire body is arching up into Chloe, desperate for as much contact as she can get, and her body burns where Chloe touches her. It starts out almost innocently, tentative fingers on her burning skin, pushing aside her shirt.

But this time Chloe doesn’t stop at her hips, but her hand travels further, and with a flash of heat surging through her, Beca remembers that she is not wearing a bra. She can hardly control her thoughts, her kisses growing more frantic by the second with Chloe’s hand on her ribcage, dangerously close to her breast. 

It’s slower this time, every movement that Chloe makes is deliberate and careful as if she’s guiding Beca. She seems to be holding back a little, savouring every touch, keeping Beca grounded, and Beca wonders whether she’s being so careful because of what Beca has accused her of just minutes ago.   
But when Chloe is moving her hand again, slowly exploring Beca’s skin, leaving fires in her wake, Beca’s mind goes blank for a few blissful moments.

With Chloe’s hand traveling further upwards still, seemingly more determined now, while Beca is holding her breath in anticipation, suddenly a memory of Chloe and Chicago pops into her head.

It’s a fake memory, Beca knows that, but it’s still clear as day, as if she has seen it first-hand.  
Chicago and Chloe, together in his hotel room, kissing just like Chloe is kissing her now.

And suddenly Beca realises that this has gotten too far too quickly.

It takes all of her strength to push Chloe’s hand away, a little too harshly, with a breathy ‘stop’ escaping her lips.

Chloe freezes, her hand now ghosting over Beca’s hip, still underneath her shirt, and she doesn’t move for several seconds in which Beca frantically tries to organise her thoughts.

Chloe’s body is still resting on Beca’s, and she’s still impossibly close, clouding Beca’s senses.  
And when she speaks, she keeps her head buried in Beca’s neck even after removing her hand from Beca’s shirt carefully and placing it next to them.

‘I’m sorry, that was too much’.

The soft whisper reaches Beca’s ear and she shudders, amazed that Chloe is still in her arms, resting her body on top of her own. Without the distraction of grabbing hands and feverish kisses, Beca almost feels even closer to her now.

‘Uhm, no, dude - it’s – it’s fine’.

Beca doesn’t even find herself convincing, her breath still not back to normal, the air hot and heavy in her lungs.

‘I just- kind of-’

Wondering whether she should tell Chloe the truth, Beca stops. It’s hard to think with Chloe so close, her scent invading her senses, her body so close that Beca can feel Chloe’s hammering heartbeat. Silencing the voice inside her that is telling her to just let herself go and kiss Chloe again, she tries to push Chloe off of her gently, propping her arms up behind to sit up.

‘Can I- uhm, I need a second to think, Chlo`.

Chole reluctantly moves away and sits up, cross-legged opposite Beca, keeping her head bowed as if embarrassed while Beca tries to calm herself down.  
Then she tries again.

‘I just saw- I saw you and Chicago kiss and- I guess I can’t just forget about all of that just by doing- this’.

Beca clears her throat, her eyes searching for Chloe’s, but Chloe is still not looking up. Rather, she bows her head even more, a breath escaping her, and for second Beca wonders if Chloe is going to run away again.

It doesn’t seem like Chloe, to be embarrassed by having made out with someone, usually so secure and open about anything sexual. But right now, her cheeks are flushed, Beca can see it even through the curtain of hair that is hiding much of Chloe’s face, and Beca is not sure whether it’s embarrassment or arousal.

Then, Chloe finally looks up at Beca, and holds her gaze bravely even through the layer of tears that begins forming in her eyes.  
Chloe’s voice, however, is calm.

‘I shouldn’t have done that, Beca, I’m sorry. We haven’t even talked about everything yet and here I am- uh- touching you’.

The wording is weird and Beca almost chuckles when Chloe stops speaking with a huff. She can’t believe that Chloe, whose favourite thing was to make Beca and Aubrey blush by being incredibly blunt and inappropriate when it came to sex, is suddenly so awkward about this whole thing. Somehow it makes Beca feel bolder in return.

‘Well, I kind of made you- touch me’,

Beca adds a wink and Chloe shakes her head in return, trying to supress a smile.

‘I’ve been such an asshole to you. I guess I should figure things out before-’

‘Before you touch me again?’

Beca offers with a smile and this time she gets a laugh and a playful shove out of Chloe. Then Chloe’s face gets serious again, and Beca’s smile falters.

‘Seriously though, I don’t know how to do any of this.’

Chloe’s shoulders fall when she says it, and she suddenly looks incredibly tired. Safe for the little lamp in the corner of Beca’s room it’s dark, even the moonlight seems to have faded a little, and Beca realises how late it must be. She wonders whether the others are still outside in the pool, but when she tries to listen for their voices, it’s quiet.

From the living room downstairs, however, Beca can hear faint chatter and music, and somehow it makes Beca feel less alone.

‘Uh, well. You call him, break up with him, and then you can touch me again?`

Beca is half-joking, but she also hopes that that’s exactly what Chloe is going to do. Breaking up with Chicago is the logical next step and probably the first step in trying to get any images of him and Chloe banned permanently from Beca’s brain.

Beca stares at Chloe in anticipation now.

‘Yeah, I mean technically-’,

Chloe starts but Beca cuts her off right away. Alarm bells are going off everywhere at the way Chloe is starting this sentence, and Beca is suddenly on edge again, sitting up straight to concentrate on Chloe’s facial expressions.

‘Technically?’

Beca looks at Chloe expectantly now, demanding an answer, and she can feel Chloe get fussy again.

‘It’s not that easy Beca, I- I just met him and-’

‘That sounds pretty fucking easy, Chloe. You don’t even know him, you obviously like me, and it’s not like any of your other relationships work out for long anyways.’

Again, the words bubble out of Beca without Beca being able to control it. She means it, and she knows that, but it’s still too harsh and a little too loud. Chloe seems desperate now, shaking her head, while tears are forming in her eyes.

‘Beca, please. I don’t want to be with him anymore, please believe me.’

‘Okay, then call him and end it.’

Beca crosses her arms in front of her chest, unable to stop herself. Her voice is still a little too loud especially in response to Chloe’s soft, pleading tone and she feels childish.

‘Beca, come on. I want to break it off, I just don’t know what to say to him. And what will we say to the others? I don’t know if I’m ready to just have them all know about- this.’

When she hears the tremble in Chloe’s voice, Beca finally manages to calm down a little. She feels exhausted and she really doesn’t want to fight anymore, especially with Chloe so vulnerable in front of her. So, she tries.

‘Okay, maybe – maybe we need to talk about all of this tomorrow. I’m super tired, and you are, too, obviously. I just- I’ve wanted this for a really long time, Chloe, and I don’t want to feel like I’m forcing you to do anything. I want to feel like you want this, too. And last night and today, when you were acting like everything was normal, that really hurt.’

It’s more than Beca planned to say, but when it’s out, she feels better, her anger at Chloe completely vanished. When Chloe looks up her again, visibly relieved by Beca’s changing mood, there’s so much love in her eyes that Beca almost gets a little scared.

‘I want this, Beca. I really do. I will make it right. And I promise you- nothing really happened between me and him.’

Chloe is stretching out her arm now, finding Beca’s hand and squeezing it. 

‘Nothing really happened-’,

Beca mumbles to words to herself, as if trying them out, and she decides that they’re okay for now. 

She can see that Chloe is bracing herself, obviously aware of her unfortunate word choice, and Beca smiles reassuringly at her. She doesn’t want to deprive herself of having Chloe near tonight, and she decides that that’s more important.   
For now.  
She definitely needs Chloe to explain more, but she also understands. Understands how scary it must be for Chloe to suddenly see her best friend in a different light. Maybe even to see her sexuality in a different light. 

And Beca can definitely understand that Chloe is scared of telling their friends. Because Beca’s heart is already beating faster when she thinks of having to talk to Emily or Aubrey tomorrow. Or when she imagines telling the others, especially Amy, about the two of them.

So, squeezing Chloe’s hand in return, Beca decides to forget about all of her reservations and all of her anger, for tonight, and when she pulls Chloe back in carefully, Chloe understands.

She lies down on her side next to Beca, holding her from behind with her hand around Beca’s waist, and her face buried in Beca’s neck. It’s unlike anything they have ever done, just being so close to each other, breathing each other in, and Beca feels so entirely content that she has to hold Chloe’s hand a little harder, just to make sure this is all really happening.

And while Beca drifts off into a peaceful slumber, she feels Chloe’s lips ghosting over her neck, placing a small kiss just below her ear.

\-------

Beca wakes up early the next day with Chloe still sleeping soundly next to her.   
She’s slept next to Chloe and woken up next to her many times, but this time it’s different. Chloe is still close, still holding onto Beca’s waist and her warmth is making Beca feel safe in a way that is unfamiliar to her. 

She turns her head slightly towards Chloe, and it’s the first time she can really allow herself to just look at her.  
Because Chloe is here in her bed, holding her, and she looks absolutely perfect in the soft morning sunlight that is slowly seeping into the room.   
It almost feels like a dream to Beca.

The moment is so peaceful, so utterly perfect, that Beca is suddenly scared of what might happen once Chloe wakes up. She has no idea how her and Chloe are supposed to act around each other from now on, and she is scared that one of them is going to make it weird or say something wrong. 

She decides that she wants to remember this moment the way it is now. 

So, she allows herself to only stay in bed a few more blissful minutes, listening to Chloe’s even breathing, until she carefully peels Chloe’s arm off of her to get up. She moves slowly and deliberately around the room, collecting her toothbrush and a towel from her desk and then silently slips through the door. Before closing it behind her, she takes one last look at the sleeping Chloe on her bed, and her stomach gives a tug at the sight.

She only takes a few minutes in the bathroom, washing her face with cold water to wake up, sleep still clinging to her, until she finally steps onto the hallway to go downstairs.

After falling asleep, she hasn’t been woken up by anyone last night, so she has no idea when the other girls went to bed. She prays that it’s not just Aubrey or Emily sitting downstairs, the thought of having to talk about her nightly outburst making her feel weak and nervous. But when she rounds the corner of the stairs to enter the living room, her heart sinks upon discovering Aubrey at the table, looking at the stairs, and now at Beca, as if she’s waiting for someone.

She’s already been seen, so Beca knows there is no going back, and she puts on an extra cheery expression to mask any obvious insecurity when she approaches the table.

‘Wow, wouldn’t have thought anyone would be up already.’

Aubrey smiles benevolently.

‘Back at you. And you should have known I’d be here, I’m always up early.’

‘Yup, you sure are.’

‘But I made myself useful, the coffee’s ready.’

Aubrey point towards the kitchen, and after mumbling a ‘thanks’ Beca turns quickly to avoid further conversation, making her way towards the kitchen and the coffee. She’s not far from the table, when, out of the corner of her eye, she can see Aubrey get up to follow her.

‘Uh’,

Beca looks over her shoulder hesitantly.

‘Do you need something?’

Her voice sounds irritated now, but Aubrey doesn’t seem to be deterred.

‘What was that last night?’

Beca takes a deep breath. That was blunt. Aubrey’s tone is flat and her expression unreadable, but the question still scares Beca. She has no idea what Chloe told Aubrey last night, and she doesn’t know what she is supposed to tell Aubrey now. She suddenly wishes that she was still upstairs in her bed next to Chloe, or maybe that Chloe was here to talk to Aubrey herself.

But she’s here, alone, and so she just keeps walking into the kitchen, the coffee pot on the counter seeming like a safety guard that would protect her once she reaches it. While walking, she feigns innocence.

‘What do you mean?’

Aubrey is not going to back down, Beca knows that, but she still isn’t sure what exactly Aubrey wants from her, so asking for more details seems to be the safest solution for now.

‘You know what I mean. The way you treated Chloe last night.’

For a second, Beca is shocked. The cup she has just taken out of the cupboard falls out of her hand, landing, however, safely on the counter before Beca grabs it again. She turns around, flabbergasted.

‘The way I treated her?’

She emphasises the last word, and her voice cracks when she does it.

‘What did she tell you?’

Aubrey takes a step back, clearly not having anticipated Beca’s strong reaction and she raises her hands as in defence. 

‘Okay, Beca, I’m sorry. I just want to know what’s going on.’

Aubrey almost looks a little scared, as if she is expecting Beca to have another outburst like last night, and Beca turns around to finally grab the coffee pot.

‘But, like, Chloe was really shaken yesterday, and I- I just want to understand what is happening between you two.’

Beca turns around again slowly, her now full cup shaking in her hands, threating to spill over.

‘I thought you talked to her. And apparently, she blamed me, so what do you want me to say?’

Beca rushes past Aubrey quickly, so she wouldn’t see the tears that are forming in her eyes now. Aubrey still follows her, but slowly this time, and she gives Beca time to sit down at the table and to take a few sips from her coffee. Then, she speaks again, her voice still calm.

‘No, she didn’t blame you. And she told me to be nice to you, so- sorry, Beca.’,

Beca desperately wishes for one of the other girls to come downstairs so this conversation is over, but Aubrey already continues, not even waiting for a reaction from Beca.

‘You know- she said you told her that you like her, and you kissed her, and all of that in one night. I just feel like you should really give Chloe more time, you know?’

Beca feels like she has been slapped, and her eyes widen in disbelief when she turns towards Aubrey.

‘She said what? I can’t believe she fucking-’

‘Beca!’

Beca’s head snaps around. She recognises that it’s Chloe who called for her, her voice still hoarse from sleeping and when Beca turns to look behind her, Chloe is standing on the stairs, her hair still a mess, but her eyes wide awake, staring at Beca pleadingly.


	9. Chapter 9

‘Beca, can you please come here for a second?’

Chloe still hasn’t moved from her position at the bottom of the stairs, and she looks incredibly small. She is standing there, shoulders hanging, still wearing her clothes from yesterday, her shirt now crumpled, and her is hair falling over her shoulders in messy curls.  
Her voice is clouded with sleep and it’s quiet, but there’s an edge of desperation in it.

‘Please, Beca.’

Chloe hasn’t taken her eyes off Beca, hasn’t even acknowledged Aubrey, and something about her persistent, pleading stare makes Beca get up and walk towards Chloe. She gives Aubrey a look when she walks past her, but Aubrey is just staring at Chloe, and Beca suddenly realises how long Aubrey and Chloe have known each other. She makes a mental note not to be angry at the wrong people anymore.

No, this is all Chloe, and it has nothing to do with anyone else.

Beca clears her throat when she arrives in front of Chloe, who has now ascended the last few steps to face Beca. For a moment, they are just standing there, looking at each other, and Beca has no idea how to act. It’s the first time they’re seeing each other since last night; and, Beca thinks, for the first time since they’ve kissed, they’re seeing each other in daylight.

For a second Beca is threatening to lose herself in Chloe’s pleading stare and she almost forgets why Chloe called her over in the first place. As her heart starts beating faster and faster, she realises they are standing a lot closer than each of them probably intended and Beca almost feels a gravitational pull from Chloe urging her to get even closer.  
When Beca subsequently takes an involuntary step towards Chloe, the air between them is crackling. There’s an urge within Beca to just kiss Chloe, images of the previous night clouding her mind, but she stops herself, balling her hands to fists at her sides. 

It’s Chloe who breaks the spell when she clears her throat and takes a step back. It gives Beca time to remember how angry she just was a second ago, and she tries not to look at Chloe to avoid getting distracted again, when she finally speaks.

‘Let me guess. You’re sorry? You were scared and didn’t know what to do? You don’t want me to make a scene again?’

Beca is surprised at how calm she sounds. She is angry, yes, but she doesn’t feel like laying all of her feelings bare in front of Chloe, not again and not here. 

‘I- please just give me today, okay? I was overwhelmed yesterday, and I told Aubrey a stupid version of what really happened. But I will make it up to you, I really will.’

Chloe speaks in a weird hushed whisper, quickly and low, in a way that suggests that she doesn’t want Aubrey to hear what she is saying. She is still scared, it’s obvious, and Beca can’t help but feel disappointed. She never expected Chloe to just get up this morning, brave and sure of her feelings for Beca, but she also didn’t expect Chloe to still be so insecure about everything.

The realisation saddens Beca, a desperate hopeless kind of sad that isn’t helped by the way Chloe’s eyes are flicking towards the stairs every now and then, checking for the other girls.

‘Honestly, Chloe-’,

Beca starts, shaking her head in defiance when Chloe stops her to pull her away. Beca isn’t deterred, however, and when they’re hidden away in a corner behind the staircase, she continues.

‘I don’t know if you have thought of that, but this is really difficult for me, too, okay? I understand that you’re confused, but you really need to stop being an asshole to me.’

Chloe flinches a little, but she doesn’t interrupt Beca.

‘And you have to make this easier for me. You started this. Or maybe I started it when I was horrible to you after our performance, but you- you really started it. Twice.’

As if to emphasise her words, Beca’s gaze drops to Chloe’s lips when she says this, and despite it being a subconscious action, it seems to work. Chloe shifts around uncomfortably until she takes a timid step towards Beca, raising her hand to tuck a strand of Beca’s hair behind her ear. Without thinking, Beca leans into the touch, sighing when Chloe lifts her other hand to Beca’s cheek, cupping her face gently.

Chloe tilts Beca’s head upwards so she can look at her, and Beca lets her.

‘I know. I know how shitty this must be for you. I just really need you to give me a chance. I want to prove to you that I can do this and that I can be there for you. Just- just give me a little more time, please.’

When Chloe smiles at Beca it’s shy and careful. It’s a smile that Beca loves and for the second time this morning Chloe is temptingly close, again rendering Beca unable to speak. So, she nods, with Chloe’s hands still on her face, and her heart gives a violent lurch when Chloe’s smile grows bigger at Beca’s agreement.  
She’s never been able to be angry at Chloe for long and somehow, even after everything that has happened, she still trusts Chloe. 

Still, when Chloe lets go of her face and starts turning around towards the living room, Beca’s hand shoots out to grab Chloe’s arm, holding her back.

‘Chloe, wait. Just- you will talk to Chicago today, right? I don’t care if we don’t let the girls know just yet, but I have to be sure that you really want this. And you- if you’ve told the truth yesterday you need to break it off. As soon as you can.’

Chloe opens her mouth to reply, but as she takes a step towards Beca again, there’s suddenly a commotion behind them, and the trampling noise of multiple feet on the staircase interrupts whatever Chloe was going to say.  
So, before Chloe turns around again, she just nods, almost unnoticeably, and then joins the girls who are starting to crowd the living room.

And as the chatter of the other Bellas fills the room, almost as if waking up the house, Beca realises that the simplicity of this morning, the serenity she felt with Chloe next to her, perfect and dreamlike, was just that- a dream, and she wonders when Chloe would finally try to make it a reality.

\-----

The pool party is Amy’s idea. 

By 4 pm she has somehow organised a shit-ton of beer and wine, and four frat-boy looking American dudes to ‘really get a party going’.  
By 4:10 Beca has resorted to stealing a pool lounger, a bottle of wine and a cooler to hide at the far end of the pool, far away from Amy, Emily, Flo and Lilly who are already deep into a weird drinking game with the guys involving way too much physical exercise for Beca to even watch from afar.

Chloe, Aubrey and Cynthia are sunbathing somewhere in between Beca’s end of the pool and the crowded other end and have apparently all understood Beca’s efforts to be by herself. Chloe is quietly talking to Aubrey, sitting back in her chair, and Beca has to actively force herself to keep her eyes off of her.  
She is wearing a see-through dress over her bikini, probably mostly to shield herself from the sun, and Beca feels like a horny teenage boy when she can’t get her eyes to stop traveling over Chloe’s body, unable to forget the way that same body was grinding into hers just hours ago. 

Eventually, she turns her lounger away from the girls not to be tempted anymore and sighs. It’s been like this all day.  
Stolen glances and futile efforts to ignore Chloe while at the same time yearning to finally be with her again.

The day had started off slowly with long showers and books and quiet music, and some much-needed downtime for everyone. The atmosphere all throughout the morning was tranquil and calm, and Beca had welcomed the excuse to sit on the sofa by herself, trying to get her thoughts away from Chloe.

Chloe had come downstairs after breakfast freshly showered, wearing shorts and a loose white T-shirt that rendered Beca’s plan to ignore her for the day increasingly harder to follow. Beca had made a pledge to wait for Chloe to come to her, to keep her mind off anything Chloe-related and to just enjoy her holidays, but she couldn’t help to look past her book more and more with every passing hour to catch another sight of Chloe.

At 2pm, after a mass-order of salad and nachos, Chloe had headed outside with her phone and when she came back in 20 minutes later, Beca desperately tried to read the expression on Chloe’s face, but she came up empty.  
There was a moment, however, shortly after Chloe had come back in, in which their eyes met, a jolt going through Beca’s body, and she imagined that Chloe looked like she felt very much the same.

But then, just minutes later, Amy came downstairs, loudly announcing the party (a plan which she obviously forgot to run by anyone), and it seemed to finally bring everybody back to life. Books were tossed aside, outfits were changed into bikinis, and even Aubrey seemed excited to get back to some action after their slow morning.

Beca, however, knew that this only meant a further delay of her next conversation with Chloe, and she was the only one refusing to get changed or to help set up the pool area in preparation for their guests.

So, an hour later, here they are, thumping music blaring through the living room into the garden, Amy loudly narrating whatever is happening in their drinking game, and Beca carefully glancing over her shoulder every now and then to look at Chloe. 

After another hour or two in which Beca mainly tries to be mean enough to everyone to avoid getting thrown into the pool or be invited to one of their stupid drinking games, Beca finally has enough. 

Chloe has been ignoring her all day again, purposely sitting far away from her both during breakfast and lunch, and when Chloe and Aubrey now even seem to agree to a drinking game with Amy and the boys, Beca decides to head inside for a much-needed break.

She is just in the kitchen getting some water, trying to calm down her heated mind, when a hand softly touches her shoulder, and Beca turns around to find Chloe, shyly grinning at her.

‘Hey.’

Chloe says it as if there hasn’t been almost entire day in which they haven’t spoken, and Beca has no idea what to respond other than a sarcastic faux-excited ‘Oh hi’. 

‘Sorry about- you know, avoiding you.’

Chloe makes a sweeping gesture around the living room, and Beca snorts in reply.

‘Oh, you avoided me? Hadn’t noticed.’

Beca takes a step towards Chloe without really knowing why, but when Chloe’s eyes start wandering around the room like those of a trapped animal, Beca freezes.

‘Oh, is this too close? Is that only okay when you decide that you feel like having a secret make-out session?’

Beca’s voice is dripping with sarcasm, but to her surprise Chloe doesn’t back away or get defensive. She smiles at Beca, a deep sigh escaping her, and then as if to psych herself up, she straightens out her shoulders and takes a hold of Beca’s hand.

‘I know it’s not fair Beca. And I don’t just want to be close to you when we’re hidden away somewhere and drunk, believe me. I mean- I really want to kiss you now. More than you can imagine.’

Chloe looks straight into Beca’s eyes as she says it and squeezes Beca’s hand a little tighter. Beca can’t help but relax at the touch. Chloe’s words are going through her like fire, the admission of her attraction to Beca, openly and without the cover of darkness, almost taking Beca’s breath away.

Beca tries to keep her mind from conjuring up imagines of Chloe grabbing her and kissing her right there in the kitchen, and instead concentrates on Chloe’s reassuring hold on her hand. When she speaks, her voice is hoarse and she has to clear her throat to continue, earning a knowing smile from Chloe.

‘Chlo- I don’t want to force you to come out to all of our friends at a pool party, okay? I hope you know that, but-’

Beca trails off when Chloe starts shaking her head.

‘That’s not it. You know I don’t care about any of that. You know me.’

Beca smiles. She does know Chloe, which is why this whole thing has been so confusing from the start. Chloe literally tells people everything about herself, Beca has accused her of being a chronic oversharer plenty of times, and she was usually never shy about who she liked, or kissed, or wanted to sleep with.

‘Well, the Chloe I know also isn’t afraid to talk to the person she almost had sex with just the night before.’

Beca raises her eyebrows, challenging Chloe, and she gets a laugh in response, big and bright, and her heart jumps at the sound as she realises how long it’s been since her and Chloe have been this open with each other.

But then Chloe gets serious again, and this time it’s her who takes another step towards Beca.

‘It’s not that. It’s not about people knowing or talking or whatever. I just don’t want to screw this up with you.  
I’ve never been friends with the person I’m dating before, and you are my best friend.’

Chloe emphasises the last two words and Beca can feel her heart grow at the sound.

‘So, this is really scary. I’ve been an asshole throughout all of this, I know that. And I wanted to talk to you about all of this today. I guess I just didn’t expect a hoard of childish frat-boys to suddenly invade our house.’

Beca rolls her eyes.

‘They are really childish, aren’t they?’

‘Well, they are friends of Amy’s, so I expected nothing less.’

Chloe winks at Beca, and they grin at each other. It feels incredible to talk to Chloe like this again, and somewhere within Beca a weight is lifted upon realising that their friendship hasn’t changed even after everything that has happened. 

‘But I did break up with Chicago.’

Beca smile freezes momentarily upon hearing Chicago’s name. She still gets angry when she thinks of Chloe and him together, the night after her and Chloe’s first kiss. But right now, with Chloe telling her about the breaking up with him without the slightest trace of sadness or regret in her voice it doesn’t change the fact that Beca feels like she is floating.

Suddenly it seems real again, the possibility of her and Chloe together, actually together, and she can feel a dopey grin spread on her face.

Beca quickly drops her head, escaping Chloe’s scrutinizing gaze, which is gauging her reaction, seemingly analysing her every movement. She doesn’t want to be too easy on Chloe too early, the painful memories of last night still on her mind, and so she tries to calm her fluttering heart, her happiness about Chloe finally being open with her, and takes a deep breath.

When she finally looks up again, she tries her hardest to keep her expression neutral. Judging by Chloe’s obvious confusion as she’s adorably scrunching her nose and furrowing her brow, Beca succeeds. 

And then, Beca rushes past Chloe turning around only once more.

‘That’s awesome, Chlo.’

And with that, Beca hurries back to her lounger by the pool, her heart racing and a cocky grin spreading on her face. Flipping their roles, just this once and just for a second, definitely won’t solve anything but Beca can’t help but feel incredibly proud of herself.

It’s a start.

When Beca is back at the pool, her lounger turned back around to face the pool and the others, her mood has changed completely, and when Chloe comes back flustered, very obviously trying to keep herself from looking at Beca, Beca can’t help but smile to herself.

Their conversation in the kitchen has made her confident, more confident than she has been with Chloe for a while, and she finds herself wishing for the end of the evening to roll around, hoping that Chloe would finally talk to her when the others would ultimately fall into an alcohol-induced early slumber.

But her thoughts are interrupted when suddenly she notices one of the guys standing two feet away from her, grinning down at her. She curses herself for having abandoned her well-trained unapproachable asshole attitude before she looks up at him, unamused.

‘Can I help you?’

The guy is still grinning, obviously not bothered by the dismissive tone in her question.

‘I’m John. Amy told me you’re a famous singer or something.’

‘Okay? I’m not. And I’m not talking to you, sorry.’

Beca has never felt bad about rejecting people she finds annoying and this is no exception. However, when she looks past the guy towering over her, her eyes fall onto Chloe again, who is openly staring at Beca now, her eyes ablaze.

‘Is that why you’re all the way back here? Because you’re too cool for the rest of us?’

John doesn’t seem to be willing to give up easily even though Beca is looking straight past him now, watching Chloe. When he takes a step closer, apparently under the impression that Beca wants to talk to him, Beca can see Chloe sit up slightly in her chair, almost as if she’s getting ready to jump out of it any second now.

Her eyes are still fixed on Beca, but Beca can’t find her gaze. Instead, Chloe’s eyes are traveling all over Beca’s body as if to mark her territory and Beca’s breath hitches. It’s entirely ridiculous for Chloe to be jealous over this guy, and yet there is no other explanation for the way Chloe is behaving. Her lip is caught between her teeth, a disapproving look spreading on her face, her brow furrowed. 

If Beca wasn’t so incredibly turned on by the open display of jealousy she would almost laugh. There is a particular type of person Beca is never nice to or interested in, Chloe knows that, and this guy is definitely right on the money.  
Still, it feels nice to have Chloe’s eyes rake over her possessively, so, swallowing all of her dislike for the dude, Beca forces a smile and turns towards him, wanting to see how far this would go.

‘I mean, I’m kind of a big deal around here you know, so I need my own space’.

The guy laughs, an annoyingly loud sound, and Beca almost regrets having given him any indication to keep this conversation going.

‘I guess you need a big strong bodyguard then.’

He grins and winks at Beca, and Beca could vomit.

‘So, do I have the job? A big fancy pop star has to be protected, right?’

Beca rolls her eyes so hard they almost hurt. She is just about to tell him to fuck off, because nothing is worth talking to this guy any longer, not even a maybe-jealous Chloe, when Chloe gets up from her chair behind him abruptly, her eyes still fixed upon Beca, a fire in her eyes that makes Beca’s knees grow weak.

And then she’s walking right towards them.

She’s moving quickly, determined, and the way she is approaching them now is so very Chloe that Beca can’t help but smile. Finally noticing that Beca keeps looking somewhere behind him, the guy turns around and is immediately greeted by an angry Chloe, her arms crossed in front of her chest.

‘Where do you think you’re going?’

He’s facing Chloe now and Beca can’t see his face, but she can see Chloe pressing her lips together at the question. There’s not even a hint of friendly banter or interest in the way she is looking him up and down, and Beca sits back in her lounger, waiting for what is going to happen.

‘I’m going to talk to my friend, Beca.’

Chloe’s voice is steady, and she doesn’t try to walk around him. Instead, she is waiting for him to step aside, her eyebrow raised, and her stance still strong.

‘You do know that this is a big time-time pop star you’re trying to talk to, right?’

Beca is almost amazed at his determinacy to keep the bit going. She can see that Chloe is getting angry, really angry, and she knows Chloe isn’t going to hold back much longer. She’s seen an angry Chloe, more than once, and she suddenly knows that she needs to stop this before anything worse is going to happen. 

Beca gets up from her pool chair to separate the two, but her plan to diffuse the tension is cut short when Chloe takes another step towards the guy, prompting him to raise his hands and open his mouth.

‘Chill, girl.’

Beca can only brace herself for what’s to come.

‘Don’t fucking tell me to chill.’

Chloe looks furious now, and with one last look up at the guy, she pushes him out of her way, taking the last few steps towards Beca.

And then, without warning, Chloe’s lips are on Beca’s, her arms wrapping around Beca’s waist holding her steady. A soft noise escapes Beca, a mix of a surprised squeak and a content sigh, and she is glad it is swallowed by Chloe’s lips and the music around them.  
Beca expects the kiss to be short, a pointed display of possessiveness on Chloe’s part, but after the initial press of Chloe’s lips she can feel them moving against her own, softly, almost as if Chloe is forgetting their current setting.

Likewise, Beca sinks into the kiss, momentarily blocking out the people around them, until a loud ‘what the hell’, which sounds a lot like it comes from Amy, breaks the spell. Beca pushes Chloe away just slightly, fear suddenly taking over her body.

But, to her surprise, when she finds Chloe’s gaze, Chloe doesn’t look scared. Her eyes are boring into Beca’s, determined and full of reassurance, and Chloe’s hand is still holding on tight to Beca’s waist when Chloe turns around to face the group.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I want to thank everyone who is reading this story and commenting!  
> Writing this is really helping to keep me sane during this whole isolation situation, and I have a couple more chapters planned to keep my brain working.


	10. Chapter 10

Beca has no idea what to do.   
Chloe’s arm is holding onto her tight, and Beca is grateful, because she feels like her legs would give in if it wasn’t for Chloe so close beside her.

‘Okay, guys.’

Chloe addresses the others like she is starting a speech, looking around the entire area to make sure everyone is listening to her now. It’s almost funny, Chloe’s business-like stance and delivery, but Beca is too busy trying not to meet anyone’s eyes, her gaze firmly fixed on her own feet, to laugh.

‘Yes, I just kissed Beca. Yes, we have kissed before. Yes, I like her and yes, I broke up with Chicago for her today.’

Beca is dumbfounded. Chloe’s voice is completely calm, matter-of-factly even, but there is something in Chloe’s voice besides that, and when Beca identifies it as pride she can feel her face go red.

Looking up tentatively to gauge the other’s reactions, Beca finds her friends just staring at them, apparently processing this new information, while there are dumb, confused grins on the guy’s faces. When she looks around, Beca can see Emily and Cynthia smile knowingly, almost as if they’ve been waiting for this moment while Chloe is still staring at the group defiantly, as if daring them to comment on what she’s just said.

Of, course, it’s Amy who breaks the silence, with a big grin on her face albeit slurring her words.

‘What, so you guys are fucking now?’

Beca wishes she could hide behind Chloe, but she is still wrapped tightly up in her arm, pressed against Chloe’s side, so she resorts to lowering her head even further in an attempt to hide her face which she is sure is bright red by now.  
Luckily, it’s Aubrey who replies before anyone else can say anything. She splashes water at Amy, who is staring at Beca and Chloe with a confused grin, her eyes squinting as if she’s trying to understand what she is seeing right now.

‘Stop being so crude all the time.’

Aubrey seems genuinely offended at Amy’s question and Beca can’t help but feel incredibly grateful for her. When there’s a sudden swell of whispers, mainly about the fact that Aubrey just used the word ‘crude’, Beca takes the chance and finally frees herself from Chloe’s embrace. 

She nods at Aubrey who is smiling at her, and next to her, Cynthia and Emily are nodding back at her in a way that suggests that they understand Beca’s silent request to keep the girls from asking any more questions or following Beca and Chloe.

So, Beca quickly grabs Chloe’s hand and drags her away from the pool area which is filled with conversations now about whether the word ‘fucking’ is a ‘crude’ word to use. She doesn’t stop until they have entered the house and are finally out of sight.

‘That was- so cool.’

Beca turns around to face Chloe, and she can’t help the huge grin that is spreading on her face.  
Chloe is wearing a similar expression, although her cheeks are a lot less red than Beca imagines her own to be.

‘Well, I am pretty cool, so.’

Chloe winks at Beca before she gets serious again, finding Beca’s gaze and holding it.

‘And it really was time for me to step up.’

‘Yeah, who knew that all you needed was a little encouragement.’

Beca jokingly shrugs her shoulders and grins at Chloe, briefly marvelling at the fact that she can be so open with her now. No hidden looks or shy glances. No accidental touches or lingering hugs. No, this is them now and Beca is smiling at Chloe and Chloe is smiling back at her, freely and secure, and Beca feels like she could explode.

So, before Beca knows what she is doing, she grabs Chloe’s hand again, cutting of whatever Chloe was going to say next, and drags her up the stairs towards Chloe’s room.

As soon as they enter it, Beca beelines for the bed, still dragging Chloe behind her. Chloe’s room is a little bigger than Beca’s, and the afternoon sun is broken into golden specks of light through the white linen curtains in front of the window.  
The whole room is tinted in a soft yellow, the furniture all comforting oak wood, with a few sprinkles of colour in the décor. 

Beca feels instantly at peace.

When she reaches the bed, Beca beckons Chloe to sit down only to push her into the mattress seconds later, climbing on top of her and pulling her into a passionate kiss.

Immediately, Chloe tries to prop herself back up on her elbows, apparently attempting to reverse their position and to roll Beca over, but Beca doesn’t let her. Instead, she pushes at Chloe’s arms, urging her to lie down again, before she slides one of her hands behind Chloe’s neck to pull her up a little into another kiss.

The boldness of the action seems to surprise Chloe, who responds to the kiss eagerly, and she lets out a surprised squeak when Beca lowers her body down to rest on top of Chloe’s.   
Soon, Beca finds herself lost in Chloe, lost in unfocused kisses and Chloe’s hands on her back, which are pulling her closer still. Beca is propped up on her elbow, her other hand free to roam, and when Beca carefully starts moving it down along Chloe’s body to grab Chloe’s hip, she feels Chloe arch into the touch.

After minutes of just that, exploring each other through kisses and careful touches, Chloe shifts underneath Beca, and Beca feels Chloe wrap her legs around one of Beca’s, and then Chloe is arching up into Beca’s thigh, hard and with purpose, and Beca’s mind goes blank.

She has been ignoring the steadily building ache in her centre, afraid of going too fast or too far with Chloe tonight, but she hasn’t considered that Chloe might be feeling the same way. Somehow hasn’t considered that Chloe might be just as turned on as she is and just as desperate for some release. The realisation hits her like a freight train and she suddenly isn’t sure anymore why she wanted to take this slow.

Instead, she decides to just let herself go and to forget her insecurities. When she gently presses her thigh down into Chloe, slowly and experimentally, she can feel Chloe arch up into the movement instantly. Emboldened by the response, she grinds down against Chloe again, and this time, a soft moan escapes Chloe’s lips and it reverberates within Beca as a flash of heat that shoots right to her centre.

She needs to hear Chloe make that noise again, and again, and soon Beca finds herself addicted to way Chloe’s breath hitches when she lets her hand travel over her hips, and to the chocked sounds Chloe lets out against Beca’s lips when she grinds her thigh down into her. 

Every fibre of her being on edge, Beca feels fingers digging into her back now, pulling at her and holding her close while hips are arching up to meet her, and teeth are scraping over her lips.  
It’s intoxicating to have Chloe under her like this, her breath coming out in short little puffs, her body so incredibly close, and her scent invading her senses.

And Beca thinks that it’s one of the hardest things she’s ever had to do when she finally pulls away a little, leaving Chloe chasing her lips, her hips bucking up into Beca, trying to get the friction back that Beca is now denying by ceasing any movement of her own.

‘Beca-’

Chloe hasn’t opened her eyes yet and the way she says her name, moans it almost, threatens to make Beca abandon her plan of talking to Chloe first as she desperately tries to get her hammering heart to calm down. 

‘Beca, please.’

The words shoot straight to Beca’s stomach, setting everything within Beca on fire, and for a second she just stares at Chloe in disbelief. She has never experienced anything hotter than this, a desperate Chloe underneath her, saying her name, low and breathy, and Beca suddenly has no idea why she thought it would be good idea to stop this.

Chloe’s hips still haven’t fully relaxed, and Beca decides to give in just a little bit, to just get one more of those addicting noises out of Chloe. When she rolls her hips down again, without warning, Chloe doesn’t have time to muffle the moan that escapes her now.

But, Chloe wouldn’t be Chloe if she were embarrassed by that, and instead, Beca suddenly finds herself flipped around, so quickly that she hardly registers the movement, until Chloe is on top of her, her hips firmly planted on Beca’s, and her face hovering above her.

There’s a mischievous grin on Chloe’s face, and if Beca didn’t feel the way Chloe is trying to get her hips from bucking into Beca’s thigh, or if she didn’t see the blush on Chloe’s cheeks, she would almost not believe that just a second ago, Chloe was basically begging her not to stop.

‘So, is this payback?’

The sight that is opening itself to Beca is incredible. Chloe is looking down at her provocatively, lips red and swollen, her blue eyes incredibly bright in the soft yellow light of the room, with red tousled curls framing her face. The fire within Chloe’s eyes takes Beca’s breath away, and she can only let out a choked sound in response.

‘Uh-.’

‘I see. So, you are trying to get me back for last night.’

Chloe cocks her head as if thinking and if Beca wasn’t so preoccupied by the way Chloe’s hips are pushing into her own, she would be amazed at Chloe’s ability to have a full-on conversation right now.

‘I wasn’t-’

It’s all Beca gets out. She’s still distracted by the way Chloe’s eyes are boring into her own, looking at her like she is the most delicious thing she’s ever seen, and she can’t get her brain to form a complete sentence.

‘What if-’,

Chloe starts while moving her hand downwards along Beca’s side until she reaches the hem of Beca’s shirt.

‘What if, instead, I make it up to you by continuing where we stopped yesterday.’

Chloe’s hand slips under Beca’s shirt then, immediately traveling upwards until it rests on her ribcage, teasing her burning skin. Beca still can’t say anything in response, and instead, she raises her hand to grab Chloe’s neck to pull her down into a searing kiss.

And now, it is Chloe who is moving her hips against Beca, pressing her thigh in between Beca’s legs and Beca can feel a familiar ache building up in her stomach embarrassingly fast. She feels like her entire body is riding an incredible high with Chloe on top of her, and when Chloe turns her head to start peppering kisses along Beca’s jaw until she reaches her neck, Beca can feel her eyes roll back into her head. 

Seconds later, Chloe then finds Beca’s pulse-point and bites down gently, and Beca can’t hold back anymore. She lets her body arch up into Chloe, a moan escaping her as she feels herself getting close to the edge again.

And right at that moment, she is transported back to the previous night, where she was in the exact same position, close to coming undone at Chloe’s hands, and with the memory of that night fresh on her mind, she makes a decision.

She pushes at Chloe, almost unnoticeably, but Chloe stops right away. 

However, this time, she doesn’t keep her face buried in Beca’s neck, hiding from the inevitable confrontation. Instead, she sits up after placing a soft kiss on Beca’s cheek, and as she looks down at Beca, she takes a deep breath, and smiles.

‘I feel like we’ve been here before, huh.’

Her voice is low, almost a whisper, and Beca laughs a breathy laugh in response, her heart still beating fast in her chest, and the ache between her legs still very much present.

‘Last night- you wanted to talk to me before going any further right? I almost made you-’

Chloe hesitates and Beca prays that this isn’t the time Chloe decides to be able to talk anything sexual freely with Beca again. She doesn’t know what would happen if Chloe actually said it out loud now, but she is pretty sure it would make her head explode. So, she is glad when Chloe continues without being explicit.

‘- and you weren’t ready. Uhm, aren’t ready, right?’

Beca sighs, and when she tries to sit up, Chloe lifts her hips to let Beca slide out from under her.   
And suddenly, they’re sitting there again, cross-legged and opposite each other, chests heaving and their breaths still shaky.

But this time Chloe takes Beca’s hand and she isn’t looking away.  
It gives Beca the confidence to reply.

‘No, I’m- I mean technically I’m ready. But I want to feel like you are in, like, completely in, before we do this.’

Chloe nods and takes a deep breath.

‘I know. I hope I didn’t-’

There’s a hint of fear in Chloe’s eyes for a second as they intently stare into Beca’s.

‘-go too far without asking you, or anything.’

When Beca realises what Chloe is saying, she shakes her head emphatically, almost comically so.

‘No, you definitely didn’t. I mean, I can’t believe how not weird it feels when we’re-’

Beca resorts to a sweeping gesture towards the bed again and lowers her head with a sigh.

‘and, believe me, it’s really hard to stop this right now. I guess we might have to work on talking about it, though.’

Beca lets out a puff of air through her nose, and smiles. Chloe squeezes Beca’s hand in response.

‘We probably do. And not just about that.’

Chloe waits until Beca looks up at her again before continuing.

‘So, you stopped because you need to be sure about this first?’

‘Yeah. I mean, no. I am sure about this- about you. I just need to be sure that you’re sure as well. I- Last night when we- I kind of suddenly pictured you and- him in my head and I couldn’t get the image out of my mind. I guess I just still can’t understand why you went home with him.’

Beca voice gets quieter and quieter until it’s almost a whisper when she utters the last part of the sentence. It’s always been hard for her to be honest about her emotions, and even though Chloe is making it easy by waiting until Beca is finished despite her stuttering, she isn’t sure how to put her feelings into words.

‘I know that it sucked that I did that. And I hate that I can’t take that back now. It’s just- It felt like the easier thing to do, you know? I knew that I like you, right then and there, I knew it, but it was just a lot to process at that moment.’

Beca’s heart sinks at Chloe’s reply. There it is again, that word. Easier. It creates a horrible twisting sensation in her chest, and she wishes she could focus on the other things Chloe just said, but she can’t.

‘Ok, this is the second time you’ve said this now. That it would be easier with him? What the hell does that even mean?’

Her voice is louder now, and she can feel Chloe’s hand twitch in her own.

‘No, Beca, I don’t mean that it’s easier, just that it’s something- familiar, you know?’

Beca raises her eyebrow as she’s gnawing on her lower lip, and she feels the anger rising up within her.

‘You know what, I actually don’t know what that means. And to be honest, I can’t believe that you thought it was easier to hurt me and pretend like nothing happened instead of just breaking it off with a guy you barely even know.’

Chloe’s eyes widen, and she shakes her head emphatically before Beca is even finished.

‘No, Beca, I didn’t mean that. I feel like it’s all coming out wrong. I felt miserable the entire night with him, because I wanted to be with you, and I wanted to break it off the next day, but somehow I just- didn’t.’

Chloe’s is getting agitated now, and her free hand is moving around frantically. There are tears in her eyes, and when she speaks again, her voice is high and shaky.

‘And I know that I was wrong to think that it would be easier to just be with him. Dating someone I barely even know, someone I didn’t even know if I really like, it seemed- safe. But it’s not him who felt safe to me, it’s just that with you there is so much at stake. I was so overwhelmed by the way I felt that night after kissing you.   
Hell, I’m overwhelmed right now. I’ve never felt like this with someone. Ever. With you, it is like- like everything suddenly makes sense. Like we should have been kissing from the moment we met, like we should always have been together.’

Beca can feel her anger wain with every word Chloe is saying, and sadness taking over. It’s everything she always wanted to hear from Chloe, and yet, somehow, she can’t forget the image of Chloe and Chicago leaving together to go to his hotel. Even though that image is one she never saw herself. 

‘It just hurts, you know. If that’s how you feel about me, then why would you do that to me? Ignore me like that?’

Beca’s voice isn’t loud anymore, but she can see the desperation in Chloe’s eyes grow at her increasingly hoarse voice.

‘I’ve liked you for so long, Chloe. And I’ve thought about kissing you, or you kissing me, a million times before it actually happened. So, when you-’

Beca can feel her voice choking up, and she almost stops speaking. She hates getting emotional in front of people, and she hates the way her voice sounds when she’s crying. But when she looks at Chloe, and sees the expectant look on her face, Chloe hanging onto her lips as if desperate to take in every single one of Beca’s words, she decides to continue.

‘- when you acted like it was just for fun and, like, no big deal, that hurt. That really hurt, and I can’t stop thinking about the way I felt that night. Or the way I felt when Aubrey told me you stayed over at his place yesterday morning.’

Chloe nods, and there’s tears rolling down her cheeks now. Beca knows that Chloe feels bad, she knows that Chloe is sorry, but she can’t help it. She can’t get Chloe and him out of her head.

‘Beca, please listen to me. Whatever you think happened that night, it’s not true. I haven’t been able to stop thinking about you ever since that kiss. And when I slept over at his hotel, there wasn’t a second I wasn’t thinking about you. I didn’t touch him, I swear. I know that that doesn’t make anything I did better. I behaved like an idiot. You are my best friend, Beca. And realising that we could be more, realising that I want us to be more was just-’

‘Scary?’

Beca interrupts Chloe, but there’s a smile on her lips when she does it.

‘Yeah, you said that before.’

‘I did, didn’t I?’

For a moment, they are just looking at each other, tears shimmering on their cheeks, and shy smiles dancing on their lips. There is a soft breeze coming in through the tilted window and although the air is warm, it feels calming to Beca’s heated skin.

And when Chloe sucks in a deep breath and sighs, it feels like the air around them shifts, comforting suddenly, and incredibly safe.

‘I want you so much, Beca.’

Chloe’s voice is barely a whisper, but the words travel through the air and reach Beca softly, mixing with the calming smooth breeze, and Beca shudders.

‘And I want to show you how much I want you.’

Through the curtain of tears in Chloe’s eyes, Beca can see the fire returning, almost as if Chloe’s body is heating up again suddenly.

‘I understand if you’re not ready, and I don’t want to make you do anything you don’t want to do. But I am here for you. And I want to make it all up to you.’

Beca’s breath hitches audibly at the words, and the heat in her stomach is back in full force. She knows that maybe sleeping with Chloe isn’t the most sensible thing to do, but suddenly she feels the urge to be close to Chloe, close in a way that is new and overwhelming, rise within her with such force that she wants nothing more than to feel Chloe back on top of her. 

Chloe’s promise to show her how much she means to her is repeating itself in Beca’s head like a mantra, the words so full of reassurance and tenderness, that any trace of insecurities or doubts are pushed far away now. 

So, after one more deep breath to calm her fluttering heart, Beca pulls at Chloe’s hand, beckoning her closer again as she lies back down on the bed, her lips slightly open in anticipation.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What can I say? They're in love, you guys.


	11. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I don't know if anyone will still read this, but I just had to finish this scene.  
> There might be more to come, but for now, I hope some of you can enjoy a (for now) happy conclusion to the previous angst fest.

Chloe isn’t breaking eye contact as she’s crawling on top of Beca, her body still suspended on all fours while Beca squirms underneath her, longing to be touched. They’ve been here before, twice now, Chloe on top of Beca, Beca’s breath quickening in anticipation, her body arching up into Chloe’s.

But this time it’s different. 

They want to go further this time, they both know it, and Beca shivers even at the thought of Chloe touching her, really touching her, without barriers of clothing and repressed feelings. She is glad suddenly that she is the only one that hadn’t changed into a bikini for the pool party, because it feels safe somehow to have a little more clothing to remove. Like there are more stages to the whole thing in which Beca can prepare herself. She is nervous, incredibly nervous, and the way that Chloe is looking at her now definitely isn’t helping.

Chloe is still hovering over Beca on all fours, her eyes raking over Beca’s body, almost as if she is making a plan of where to touch Beca first, and there’s a hunger in her eyes that takes Beca’s breath away. The boldness within the stare is all Chloe, the way Beca knows her, and it makes her head spin. Her skin is burning where Chloe’s eyes are traveling over her body, the need to finally have Chloe’s body close again slowly overpowers any other thought she might have had. 

But Chloe seems to be in no rush, and when she finds Beca’s gaze, her eyes burning, she sits up without breaking eye contact, firmly planting her hips on Beca’s. Then, with a quick movement, she removes her beach dress to reveal the bikini she is wearing underneath it and Beca almost looks away, momentarily forgetting that this time she is allowed to look. That if the way Chloe is looking at her now is any indication, Chloe wants her to.

‘Wow.’

It’s all Beca can say and she isn’t even sure of how she gets the one word out. Chloe looks absolutely incredible in the soft light of the afternoon sun, her toned arms flexing as they get rid of the dress, her red curls shimmering in the broken-up sunlight, and Beca suddenly has no idea how she is supposed to function with Chloe on top of her like this. Luckily, Beca thinks, Chloe seems to function very well in this setting, and Beca thinks back to countless times Cloe has unashamedly made a sexual comment or flirty quip that had left Beca flustered. 

As if Chloe knows what Beca is thinking, she finds Beca’s gaze again and smiles cockily.

‘I’m glad you think so.’

As she says it, she reaches down to cup Beca’s cheek, running her thumb across Beca’s bottom lip, her blue eyes ablaze. It’s the Chloe Beca knows, and it makes Beca more sure than ever that this is exactly what she wants. So, when Chloe slowly lowers her body down again until Beca can feel the reassuring weight of Chloe on top of her, she relaxes back down into the mattress instantly.

And finally, Chloe’s lips are on hers. They move slowly and deliberately against Beca’s, while Chloe’s free hand holds on to Beca’s hip, massaging the skin there. Chloe sets up a slow pace, her kisses careful and lingering, and Beca can immediately feel her entire body on edge. Her hands are grabbing onto the sheets beneath her, as if they are scared of touching Chloe without the barrier of clothing. Beca wonders briefly if it’s weird that she is holding onto the sheets instead of Chloe, and it makes her realise how much her fingers itch for more.

So, after a shaky intake of breath, Beca lifts her hands fully away from the sheets, settling them on Chloe’s hips, gently at first, but soon grabbing at Chloe to hold her close when their kisses grow increasingly hungry. There are soft noises of pleasure slowly filling the otherwise silent room now, and when Chloe’s hand lets go of Beca’s hip to roam up and down her side, eventually coming up to tangle in Beca’s hair, Beca’s stomach flutters at the sensation.

They stay like this for a while, only breaking their kiss to take shaky breaths against each other’s lips, each interruption filled with shy smiles and fluttering eyelids before they crash their lips together again.

When Chloe’s hand then dips under the hem of Beca’s shirt, moving over exposed skin, Beca’s hands seem to move on their own accord, letting go of their safe hold on Chloe’s hips to travel over her exposed back. The reaction from Chloe is instant. She slightly changes the angle of her head to deepen their kiss, teeth scraping over Beca’s bottom lip while Chloe’s body shifts on top of Beca’s, so she can push one of her legs between Beca’s thighs. 

Beca arches up into Chloe instantly, her stomach twisting at the new sensation. With Chloe’s lips back on her own, kissing her hard, Beca’s hands suddenly become even bolder, traveling up and down Chloe’s bare back until they reach Chloe’s ass to pull their bodies together forcefully.

The sudden movement results in Chloe pushing into Beca even harder and Beca meets Chloe with arched hips. The sound that escapes Beca’s lips then is something between a moan and a desperate whimper and Beca can feel Chloe hum against her lips in response. It’s followed by a low chuckle before Chloe’s movements suddenly cease, and she slightly lifts her head up, leaving Beca panting against her lips, trying to keep her hips from bucking into Chloe’s thigh.

‘Someone’s impatient’.

Chloe’s voice is low when she whispers the words into Beca’s ear. When she then sits up a little, she pulls at Beca’s shoulder to get her to lift her body up as well. 

Beca knows what Chloe wants to do next and she can’t help but respond with a nervous smile. The open teasing followed by the eye-contact as Chloe is pulling her up is so different from the desperate way they had clung to each other in Beca’s bed just the day before, scared to look at the other for too long, that it finally calms Beca’s fluttering heart a little. The thought of what would come next sends a shiver down Beca’s spine, but she also knows she is ready this time and that she trusts Chloe. After Chloe has guided Beca upwards into a sitting position, Chloe on top of Beca, she halts for a moment, smiling down at Beca with such adoration that Beca wonders for a moment if this is all a dream.

But when Chloe tucks at the hem of Beca’s shirt, Beca can feel Chloe’s hands shake despite how confident she currently looks, and she remembers just how real all of this is. Chloe seeks Beca’s gaze before she moves again, waiting for her silent confirmation, and when Beca lifts up her arms, Chloe swallows audibly before pulling the shirt over Beca’s head. After her shirt has joined Chloe’s dress on the floor next to the bed, Beca can feel Chloe’s hands on her back, halting just below her bra clasp.

‘Can I?’

Beca’s breath hitches at the sound of Chloe’s voice. It’s husky in a way she’s never heard it before and there’s a nervous tremble that makes Beca’s heart flutter. Chloe gets agitated, yes, and she often has a nervous energy about her, but not like this. No, the softness within her nervous laughter now is new to Beca, and the tentative way Chloe’s hands ghost over her back just below her bra clasp makes Beca’s heart swell. 

Still, when Beca nods, sucking in a shaky breath, Chloe’s movements are as steady and sure as Beca would have expected. Chloe pulls her bra straps down along her arms until the bra joins the T-shirt and the dress next to the bed, only to immediately pull Beca back into another kiss, giving her no time to be self-conscious or nervous. 

But before Beca can resume her hold on Chloe’s back to pull her back down onto the mattress, Chloe breaks the kiss again. Beca takes a second to open her eyes, already feeling Chloe’s burning stare on her, taking her in, and when she finally looks at Chloe, Chloe’s gaze is fixed upon her chest, her bottom lip caught between her teeth and her shoulders rising and falling in time with her heavy breaths.

‘You’re beautiful.’

When she says it Chloe’s gaze is back on Beca’s face, looking deeply into her eyes with a reassuring smile. And before Beca can understand what is happening, Chloe’s hands then rise up and vanish behind her back, removing her bikini top in a quick motion. Beca’s brain practically short-circuits at the sight, and her gaze immediately drops down to Chloe’s chest. When Chloe murmurs her name, quietly and full of reassurance, Beca wants to reply, wants to tell Chloe how long she has waited for this and how breath-taking she looks, but her throat feels tight and dry and she only manages a breathy whimper.

And somehow, Chloe seems to know exactly what Beca needs, so when she bends back down to capture Beca’s lips in a lingering kiss, pushing their bodies together again, Chloe’s movements feel strong and secure.

As soon as Beca feels the press of Chloe’s bare chest on her own, Beca’s breath hitches and there’s a soft groan escaping from somewhere in the back of her throat. She can feel the slick heat that is pooling in her centre, and she wonders if it’s embarrassing how wet she already is, and if Chloe can feel it through the thin fabric of her airy shorts.

Determined now to at least give Chloe an actual reply, she breaks the kiss to pepper small kisses along Chloe’s jaw until she can bury her face in Chloe’s hair.

‘You’re beautiful, too.’

When she whispers the words against Chloe’s neck, she can feel a shiver run through Chloe, and Beca’s next breath is turned into a soft moan as Chloe increases the pressure of her thigh between Beca’s legs as if in response to the words.  
Seemingly emboldened now, Chloe then lets her hand roam across Beca’s body again, tentatively but determinedly moving upwards along her side, until she reaches Beca’s chest, moving her hand over her breast experimentally.

Beca immediately arches into the touch until Chloe touches her more firmly, propping herself of on her elbow to allow herself more access. Beca’s face is still buried in Chloe’s neck, and her hands are grabbing onto Chloe forcefully, holding onto her for dear life, while she can start to feel the air around her burning.

It’s all becoming too much, and when Chloe lifts her head up to capture Beca in a forceful kiss, her hand still on her breast and her thigh grinding against Beca’s centre, Beca can feel her body start to beg for release.

She knows that she wants to take this slowly, wants to savour every touch and every little noise that Chloe lets out against her lips, but she can feel herself lost in a haze of desire, and before she knows what she is doing she has grabbed Chloe’s hand and pushed it down her body to dip underneath the hem of her shorts.

Immediately, Chloe’s movements cease almost completely and Beca can hear herself groan in frustration before she lets go of Chloe’s hand as if burned, the bold, wanton expression of her hunger suddenly seeming too forward. But Chloe doesn’t move away and her hand stays where Beca put it.

‘Hey.’

Chloe nudges Beca’s chin with her nose, beckoning her to open her eyes. Beca’s breath is still shaky and uneven, and when she opens her eyes to meet Chloe’s she can feel her heart hammering in her throat.

‘Are you sure about this?’

Chloe squeezes Beca’s hip with her hand, as if to indicate what she means with her question, and Beca swallows audibly at the sensation.

‘Uh-’

Her voice sounds weird and husky when she tries to speak, and she has to clear her throat before she can continue, making sure to keep eye-contact with Chloe.

‘Uhm, yeah. I mean, yes. I want this. I mean- if you are ready.’

Beca is suddenly afraid that she was too forward, that she misunderstood Chloe’s signals, but when Chloe smiles in response, her body relaxes again.

‘Oh, I definitely am.’

Chloe takes a moment to let her eyes wander over Beca’s body before she bites down on her lip and looks up at Beca again. 

‘So incredibly sure.’

Beca is pretty sure she forgets to breathe at the open display of Chloe’s desire for her, and she can feel the low throbbing between her thighs come back in full force when Chloe then smirks at her, and removes her hand from Beca’s shorts only to sit up and carefully pull Beca’s shorts and her underwear down her legs. 

It all seems to happen a lot quicker than it probably does, but to Beca it feels like a mere heartbeat until Chloe is back on her, and she barely registers the cool air that hits her between her legs before Chloe leg is back on her, soft and smooth against her naked body. Again, she briefly wonders if she should be embarrassed by how wet she is against Chloe’s thigh, or by the way her hips are arching up into Chloe as soon as Chloe’s body touches hers again. 

But Chloe does not hesitate this time, causing Beca to forget her fears instantly when she feels Chloe’s hand travels down slowly to between Beca’s body and Chloe’s thigh. Beca briefly opens her eyes, using her last strength for the action in order to reassure Chloe one last time. Their eyes meet, Chloe’s never leaving Beca’s until Beca nods and pulls Chloe down into a searing kiss. As soon as her lips are on Beca’s, Chloe pushes her hand down completely until she is touching Beca directly.

Beca feels like her head is going to explode as soon as Chloe’s fingers find their way through her wetness. She breaks their kiss as her mouth falls open in a silent moan, and she barely manages to keep her grip on Chloe’s back, desperate to keep her pressed tightly against her. 

During the first few shaky and unfocused movements of Chloe’s fingers, they are breathing each other in, joined at their foreheads while Beca desperately tries to keep some semblance of sanity. She wants to kiss Chloe again, wants to feel everything at once, and when Chloe’s lips are finally back on hers, she lets out a shaky sigh into Chloe’s mouth. In true Chloe fashion is does not take her long to become sure and steady in her movements, and the question of why Chloe is so goddamn good at everything flicks through Beca’s mind for a second, but it’s gone before she can quite grasp it.

Because Chloe is really good at what she is doing right now.

She seems to be everywhere at once, completely surrounding Beca and it makes Beca feel safer than she has every felt before. Chloe’s weight is still securely on top of her, despite Chloe having shifted slightly to her side to have more freedom in her movements against Beca’s center. Her lips are still on Beca’s and she seems to be guiding her, catching Beca’s frantic open-mouthed kisses, and slowing her down at the same time.

The fingers between Beca’s legs are working slow circles and it is driving Beca crazy. The pressure is steady, but careful, and she can feel that Chloe wants to drag this out, causing Beca to desperately try and keep her hips from bucking too wantonly into Chloe’s hand.

But Beca’s entire body is screaming for release.   
She feels as if she has been teetering in the edge since Chloe had come into her room two nights ago, and her body has been begging her for release since then.

Beca has been trying to control the soft noises and moans that are steadily escaping her, both in volume and in frequency but she is starting to lose the battle with each stroke of Chloe’s hand. When Chloe finally increases the pressure between her legs, as if in response to Beca’s moans, Beca knows that she will not be able to last much longer, and she tears her mouth away from Chloe’s to bury her face in Chloe’s hair. It’s all too much now, with Chloe’s scent invading Beca’s head, Chloe’s fingers still working mercilessly between her legs, and Chloe’s own soft moans released against her temple.

Then, when Beca is about to let Chloe know that she cannot last much longer, Chloe’s fingers cease their movements before stopping to draw lazily up and down through Beca’s wetness. Beca’s entire body screams at the loss of friction, but before Beca can open her eyes to see why Chloe has stopped, Chloe’s fingers near her entrance, slowly and almost just ghosting over the hot, exposed skin there. 

Beca realises immediately what Chloe wants and the thought sends her mind into overdrive, her entire body waiting for Chloe to keep going. But Chloe is still just softly moving her fingers over her entrance as if waiting for something and Beca knows that Chloe won’t do any more than that without Beca’s conformation. Still, when Chloe lifts up her head to meet Beca’s waiting gaze, Beca can only nod. For a few seconds, Chloe watches Beca intensely, as if waiting for Beca to change her mind, but then Beca’s hips buck up in a desperate attempt to regain some friction and the tip of Chloe’s finger slides into Beca without much resistance. 

Chloe’s breath hitches in time with Beca’s at the sensation, as Beca’s eyes flutter shut. She desperately needs Chloe do move again, to do something, but the hand between her leg stays still and Beca suddenly realises that despite Chloe’s confidence, this is all new to her as well. So, she moves the hand that had been tangled in Chloe’s hair downwards to come to rest on Chloe’s. She opens her eyes again to catch Chloe’s gaze, reassuring her, and when Chloe responds with a soft smile, Beca pushes against Chloe’s hands, guiding her finger inside completely. The sensation is immediately overwhelming, the idea, and even more so, the feeling of Chloe being inside of her, madding. 

As Beca’s head falls back a low moan escapes her, and she wonders briefly how she could have gotten this lucky.

But then, any rational thought escapes her brain, when Chloe’s lips are back on hers and the confidence in her movements is back. Chloe moves her finger experimentally a few times before she finds a slow rhythm that leaves Beca breathless instantly. Pressing heated kisses along Beca’s jaw and neck, she becomes more and more sure in her movements before she finally pulls her finger out only to add a second one upon the next soft thrust. For the second time tonight, Beca feels like she is losing herself completely and utterly in Chloe. 

Beca’s hands are traveling over Chloe’s back as if trying to find something to hold on to, and when they come to grab onto Chloe’s neck, Chloe responds by grinding down against her own hand to push her palm against Beca at the same time as moving inside of her. 

Beca is close, incredibly close, and the nearing release already feels so powerful that it almost scares Beca. She finds Chloe’s lips again before arching into Chloe’s hand, deliberately this time, a guttural sound escaping from the back of her throat. 

She grinds up into Chloe’s hand, any thoughts of being too forwards or too desperate long gone, until she finally finds release in Chloe’s arms. 

Through the haze of her orgasm she can hear Chloe moan against her lips, and it only increases the intensity of her release. Chloe waits until Beca’s hips slump against the mattress and Beca’s grip on her back loosens before she removes her hand. When Beca opens her eyes after what feels like an eternity of just revelling in the feeling of Chloe so close to her, she finds Chloe staring down at her, a dopey grin on her face mixed with what Beca identifies to be something between disbelief and pride.

‘Wow.’

Chloe whispers the word against Beca’s lips as she presses a soft kiss against them.

‘Yeah.’

Beca can barely manage to say anything and her voice sounds hoarse and far away. She still cannot quite believe that Chloe is really here, looking at her with such intense adoration in her eyes that Beca has to avert her eyes. She buries her face in Chloe’s hair again, wrapping her arms around her to keep her close and Chloe lets her.

For a while, it’s just that. Chloe’s warm breath against the side of her head, Chloe’s fingers drawing lazy circles on Beca’s arm, and, through the window, faint sounds of splashing and laughter from the pool, far away on the other side of the house.

‘I just want to stay here forever.’

Beca whispers the words against Chloe’s neck and she can hear Chloe smile at them.

‘Me, too.

But-’

Chloe starts and finally props herself up to look at Beca. There is a soft smile on her face.

‘I’m still wearing half of my bikini and that-’

The smile morphs into a confident grin.

‘- seems unfair.’

Beca is stunned for a moment at the boldness of the statement, the hidden request within the words.

‘Uh.’

Chloe’ smile immediately falters.

‘I mean- I’m not saying you have to- uhm- do anything. We can also stay like this if you want.’

The sudden seriousness in Chloe’s voice makes Beca smile. 

Chloe still continues.

‘I mean- I’m so glad we didn’t do this last night and waited until we were ready, so if you need more time now, I can totally wait.’

Chloe smiles reassuringly at Beca, and Beca can feel her heart swell at how sincere Chloe sounds. But she can also still feel the pang of heat that had shot through her at Chloe’s suggestion of Beca returning the favour, and she knows suddenly that she wants nothing more than to make Chloe feel the same way she felt just moments ago.

So, she decides that now, it is her time to be cocky.

She props herself up on her elbows so quickly than Chloe lets out a little squeal before Beca rolls them over to reverse their positions. When Beca looks down at Chloe, she expects a laugh, maybe even a faux-annoyed quip about Beca’s size and her nevertheless successful display of strength, but she is met by eyes that are so full of desire that Beca’s breath hitches. 

And when she bends down to kiss Chloe, she is met halfway by an impatient Chloe pulling her down, unabashedly arching her body up into Beca’s.

And as soon as Chloe grinds her hips into Beca’s for the first time, letting out a moan at the same time, Beca is lost in Chloe again. Outside a tint of pink invades the soft afternoon light, as Beca pulls Chloe’s last item of clothes down her legs. And when she kisses her way back up until she can press a soft kiss on Chloe’s center, Beca lets herself get drowned in the string of soft moans and whimpers which are slowly filling the room.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Again, thank you to everyone who liked and commented- you really made my first few weeks of quarantine!


	12. Chapter 12

From the second her mouth makes direct contact with Chloe, Beca feels everything through a haze.   
She vaguely registers Chloe’s hands tangling in her hair, and the way Chloe’s hips are bucking into her during her first few experimental strokes. Beca urges herself to memorise every single second of her and Chloe together like this, but her brain seems unable to keep track of all the different sensations. 

The way Chloe feels so soft on her lips, the way she tastes and the way she sounds, all breathy moans and strangled whimpers as Beca explores her and finally adds a little pressure with her tongue.

It’s perfect.

Beca is so lost in Chloe, so caught up in the way Chloe’s hands are holding onto her head, that she almost does not hear the loud stomping noises outside of Chloe’s room. She only realises what the sound means when there is a knock in the door, determined and urgent, and Beca breaks away from Chloe in a panic, shuffling her body up until it is awkwardly positioned next to Chloe before pulling the sheets over them just in time before the door opens and Aubrey is suddenly standing in their room. 

The harsh light from the hallway outside is jarring, insulting even, as it penetrates the soft light of the room and ultimately breaks the spell Beca and Chloe had been under. Beca realises that she had almost forgotten that her and Chloe are not alone in this house. She might have even forgotten that her and Chloe are not the only people on earth. 

Next to Beca, Chloe is tensing up, forcing her breath out in seemingly normal intervals, but despite her efforts it sounds incredibly uneven and Beca can hear the arousal in Chloe’s breathing still. And while Chloe sits there frozen on the bed, clenching her thighs under the sheets next to Beca, frantically looking back and forth between Aubrey and Beca, all Beca can feel is anger.

‘What the fuck, Aubrey?’

Her voice is surprisingly strong, but when Beca tries to sit up to underline her words, she realises that the sheet that is currently covering her and Chloe’s naked bodies is too small to allow her to move without exposing Chloe. So, she awkwardly halts in mid-air, propped up on her elbow, glaring at Aubrey while trying to ignore how hot Chloe’s skin feels against her own.

Aubrey is standing in the door with her eyes averted, trying hard not to directly look at Chloe and Beca in front of her. She shakes her head in response to Beca’s question and takes a deep breath as if to compose herself before she answers, keeping her eyes firmly set on the floor somewhere in front of the bed.

‘Beca, I’m so sorry, honestly. But-’,

She stops before finally shifting her glance towards Beca and Chloe on the bed and Beca can see the genuine regret on her face. Seconds later, Aubrey’s eyes are back on the floor, and she continues almost in a whisper.

‘Um, Chicago is downstairs and one of the guys made a joke about how you’,

Aubrey’s eyes flicker up towards Beca,

‘um, stole his girlfriend, and- well.’

Aubrey looks around the room helplessly, but neither Beca nor Chloe can do anything but stare at her, the meaning of Aubrey’s words not quite hitting them yet.

‘Well, he wants to talk to Chloe. I tried to get him to leave, really, but he was ready to come up here to find you, and I thought it would be better if I come up instead, because-’

Aubrey trails off and gestures towards the bed as if to present Chloe and Beca, and then very abruptly turns around to leave the room mumbling a choked ‘sorry’ in the process before closing the door behind her.

As soon as the door is closed, the room is back to its dim softness, but Beca still feels exposed, even under the soft sheet that is covering her. She is speechless. She cannot bring herself to do anything but to stare at the spot where Aubrey has stood, her mouth open in disbelief. There are a million thoughts rushing through her head, and only one thing seems incredibly clear to her. 

Chicago really came here and fucking ruined it. Ruined this moment, ruined Beca’s chance to finally fully be with Chloe.

Chloe.  
She still has not said anything or moved even a little bit, and Beca finally finds the strength to tear her eyes away from the door and move her body around to face her.   
Chloe is sitting up slightly, propped up against the pillow and she is staring intently at her hands, which are folded in her lap. Beca can tell that Chloe is still pressing her legs together, and another wave of anger washes over her at the realisation. She had wanted nothing more than for Chloe to feel good and safe, and now all that is left is an anxious Chloe, trying to get her arousal under control instead of Beca being able to care of it.

Beca helplessly shifts on her arm in order to sit up a little, and she is suddenly aware of all of the places in which her and Chloe’s bodies are still touching under the sheets. Still, she manages to sit up to face Chloe, desperately trying to get her brain to think of something, anything to say.  
When the action moves the sheet slightly and uncovers Chloe’s body, Beca’s eyes inadvertently travel over it, and she can feel a sharp pain in her chest at the sight.

She is angry now, really angry and the way Chloe is still not looking at her, her shaky breath the only noise in the otherwise silent room, is not making it better. She is angry that this moment has been taken away from Chloe. Angry that Chicago apparently has not accepted whatever Chloe had told him on the phone, and, if she is honest, she is a little angry at Chloe. 

Chloe who has been caught in the act by Aubrey a million times, Chloe who talks about sex like other people talk about the weather, but who is currently still staring at her hands, an embarrassed look on her face that is again so unlike Chloe that Beca could almost cry.

Chloe’s legs are trembling, and her breathing is shaky still, with her chest rising and falling with each new attempt at a calm intake of breath. Beca searches her face for a sign of the Chloe that had been there only minutes ago but when she gets too scared of coming up empty, she averts her gaze to her own lap, still unable to think of anything to say.

Then, out of the corner of her eye, she can see Chloe take another deep breath before she abruptly turns her body towards Beca, who looks up right away and finally meets Chloe’s gaze. 

The initial anxious look in Chloe’s face then gives way to something else and Beca heart drops when she sees tears form in Chloe’s eyes.

‘Beca, I-’

Chloe’s voice shakes and she doesn’t finish whatever she was going to say. Her eyes are filled with uncertainty, and her lips are pressed together tightly, reminiscent of the way she had looked at Beca when she had seen her again for the first time after their kiss at the party.

The memory awakens something in Beca. She is aware that she still has not said anything to Chloe, aware of Chloe’s hand that is slowly making its way towards Beca’s in an attempt to be close to her, but she cannot help it.

She is suddenly incredibly and overwhelmingly mad at Chicago. She knows somewhere in the back of her mind that this should be solved differently, calmer, and that Chloe should be the one to do it, but she is already moving, pushing the sheets aside and climbing over Chloe to get out of the bed. There is a painful tug in her stomach when her naked body touches Chloe’s in the process and it just fuels her disappointment in having been interrupted like this.

‘Beca, what are you doing?’

Chloe is hiding the agitation in her voice, Beca can tell, and she speaks calmly despite the panicked look on her face.

‘I’m going to talk to that asshole downstairs.’

Beca tears her eyes away from Chloe, from the pleading in her eyes, and scrambles to put her clothes back on.

‘Beca, calm down please.’

Beca can feel Chloe’s hand grab her own trying to keep her from pulling her shirt over her head, and for a short moment, she halts. And maybe, she would have stayed if Chloe had just said something else, something besides the panicked plea for Beca to calm down, but when Beca turns her head to look at Chloe again, Chloe stays silent.

And so, Beca gets up, pulls her shirt over her head and puts on her shorts before opening the door and storming downstairs. 

When Beca arrives downstairs, the living room is a lot less crowded than she had feared. She catches a glimpse of Aubrey, who is guiding a group of people, among them Amy’s friends and some of the girls along the pool, and the open back door suggests that Aubrey had tried to clear the living room as much as she could before the inevitable confrontation that was about to happen.

As Beca takes a few steps through the living room, she can hear voices from the kitchen, and as soon as she makes out Chicago’s low voice her heart drops to her stomach. Her hands are starting to tremble more and more with every step she takes towards the kitchen, but she is still determined to face him.

She wonders suddenly if Chicago came here alone or if she was going to have to face a few of his friends in there as well. She is incredibly aware now of what she must look like, hair dishevelled and her face likely still red and hot. Beca lifts her hands to smooth her hair down and then decides not to. She lets out a weird laugh. Let him see her like this.

‘Ok, so just call her later, all right?‘

‘Yeah, I guess you’re right, I shouldn’t have come here.’

It is about two seconds too late when Beca understands that Cynthia and Chicago seem to have just agreed on Chicago leaving, and by then she is already standing in the kitchen entrance, blocking Chicago’s way out. She decides that the fact that he had come there and apparently harassed Aubrey into coming upstairs is bad enough, even though his expression upon seeing her almost makes her feel sorry for him.

His face basically falls.

‘Beca.’

He says her name as if he cannot actually believe she is standing in front of him and the way he is staring at her makes Beca feel stupid suddenly. She tries to get back to the anger she had felt before seeing him and upon thinking of the way he must have behaved to make Aubrey disturb them, she can feel it coming back.

‘What the fuck are you doing here?’

It’s even louder than she had thought.

‘I- uhm, I was just trying to see if Chloe would talk to me in person. You know she hadn’t really explained why she wanted to break up with me. And I didn’t know that you-’

Chicago doesn’t finish his sentence and Beca feels like an asshole.  
If she’s honest, she understands why he is here. Understands why he would want to fight for Chloe. She would do the same thing. And now here she is, standing in front of him seconds after having been in bed with someone he had considered his girlfriend until a mere few hours ago.

She is just about to say something else, maybe to apologize for yelling, when she can feel a hand on her shoulder.  
It’s Chloe.

Beca turns around slowly, scared of seeing the expression of Chloe’s face. But when she finally faces her, ready to meet those blue eyes even if they would glare at her with disappointment or anger at her outburst, Chloe is not looking at her.

She pushes Beca to the side gently, and takes a step towards Chicago. Beca has no idea how to react. Chicago is standing there, tall and looking like a sad puppy, and Beca can only stare.

‘Why did you come here?’

Chloe’s voice is gentle, and Beca thinks that she sounds a little tired.

‘I asked you to call me if you wanted to talk again. I know this is confusing, but I told you that it is over.’

Chicago smiles a little and Beca hates how much this conversation makes her feel like an asshole. She overreacted, she knows that, but Chloe ignoring her like this, talking to Chiacgo like Beca is not even in the room hurts.

‘I know, Chlo, I shouldn’t have come here.’

The nickname feels like a knife that is twisted somewhere deep in Beca’s chest.

‘The guys convinced me that this is how I could get you back, but it was stupid. Cynthia told me about-’

Chicago hesitates and looks over at Beca, who feels exposed under the stare.

‘about you two. I should have known that something was up, I’m an idiot.’

It’s the last words that Beca hears. She can’t stand being in the kitchen with them, Chloe’s back towards her, and Chicago’s benevolent stare upon her, as if he was letting her have Chloe instead of trying to get her back.

She knows there was never a competition between them, knows that Chloe wants her, but she still feels bad. Bad that she basically stole Chicago’s girlfriend and bad that she would do it all over again in a heartbeat.

And even worse, she feels like she has disappointed Chloe somehow.

Beca walks around the house quickly, unseen by the others at the pool and halts when she has reached the back wall of the building. Trees and small bushes surround the area and Beca feels safely hidden away behind them. It’s almost dark outside, the sky dipped in deep purples, and she wonders if she should just stay in this spot for tonight. Sleeping among the trees and far away from everything that has happened over the past few hours.

But then, somewhere further away, there is the sound of faint footsteps and the dull slam of a car door before Beca sees a figure turning the corner of the house. She knows that it is Chloe right away. She is walking towards her determinedly, her lower lip caught between her teeth in a nervous gesture and Beca inadvertently backs away a little.

She takes a few steps away from the wall and turns around before Chloe comes to a halt behind her. She is incredibly embarrassed suddenly, and scared that after this, her and Chloe would be unable to go back to the way they were this afternoon.

When Chloe speaks, her voice is soft, but the edge of annoyance is audible.

‘Care to tell me what the hell that was?’

Beca doesn’t know why, but the choice of words makes her anger flare up again. Not necessarily at Chloe, or Chicago, but at the overwhelming back and forth of emotions over the past few days. 

‘Well, someone needed to tell him to leave.’

‘Yes, me. I had to tell him, and I did. He’s gone.’

‘Good.’

Beca sounds like a sulky teenager, but she doesn’t care.

‘Maybe if you had told him everything over the phone, we would not have had this problem.’

‘Beca, come on, that’s not fair.’

‘No, it’s not.’

Beca can feel herself get more agitated and she balls her hands up into fists.

‘None of this is fair. It’s not fair that you kissed me and went home with Chicago right after. It’s not fair that you ignored me for hours when you came back from being with him, and it certainly isn’t far that he interrupted us when we-‘

There is a hand on Beca’s shoulder.  
The touch is soft and caring, and it works. Beca takes a deep breath and turns around to face Chloe.  
Her brow is furrowed and Beca can see the genuine worry written all over Chloe when she replies.

‘I know.’

Beca swallows.

‘Why did you ignore me in the kitchen just now?’

Her voice is barely a whisper.

‘I didn’t ignore you, I just couldn’t-’

Chloe stops and her eyes travel over Beca’s body as if she is looking for an answer there. Beca shifts uncomfortably on her feet before Chloe looks back up into Beca’s eyes again.

‘I just couldn’t look at you after- uhm, upstairs.’

Beca shakes her head. She still can’t believe that Chloe is suddenly so shy when it came to anything involving sex. The way Chloe’s gaze is now fixed to the floor as if she had said something embarrassing almost makes Beca laugh.

‘I had to deal with him first, okay? I’m so sorry for everything that has happened these past few days, but I just really- uhm, can’t look at you right now without thinking about that.’

It’s all Chloe says before she takes a few steps back as if she is scared of her own admission. She stops when she has almost reached the wall, and just stands there and looks at Beca, waiting. There is heat pooling in Beca’s stomach, she can feel it, and she thinks of the way Chloe had clenched her thighs after Aubrey had come in, of the way she had tried to keep her breath under control, and suddenly there is only one thing on Beca’s mind.

Thinking back to when they were in Chloe’s bed, a shiver runs over her spine as she remembers the way she had felt with Chloe securely on top of her, all around her, inside her.

And then Beca makes a decision.

She takes a few steps towards Chloe, and only leaves a few inches of distance between them to grab Chloe’s hands. She thinks back to the last time they had been this close, Beca’s head between Chloe’s legs, and the intimacy of being this close to Chloe again after having slept with her hits her like a freight train.

‘I hate that he interrupted us.’

Chloe looks straight into Beca’s eyes as she says it and Beca swears she can see Chloe’s eyes darken as she pulls her slowly closer.

‘I really hope this doesn’t change anything, Beca.  
I meant everything I said before.’

Chloe’s eyes remain fixed on Beca and Beca can feel herself grow hot under the stare.

‘I only want you.’

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apparently I just love interrupting smut with more angst, I'm sorry (but also not sorry).  
> They'll talk more soon, I swear!


End file.
